Thursday, January 26, 2012

I Can Spin!

 
It is a guess on my part that I do not need to clarify that I am speaking of wool and not exercise. I have had a wheel for a few years but never made the time to really focus on learning how. My staccato efforts proved more frustrating than fruitful. So it was that I found myself at the MA Sheep and Wool Show with my wheel and a promise to myself to spin. Saturday evening I brought down my wheel to the screened in porch of the bed and breakfast. The sun was setting and chipmunks were shuttling about the yard. i had finished up the last of the fiber I had brought with me and took out a baggie passed to me that morning by Carole from Foster Farm. Not having much experience with different fibers I pulled out some fiber and tentatively started spinning. For whatever reason I felt like I could enroll in the spinning Olympics and win! I wanted to call her and make sure I had more than the baggie's contents to keep the magic going. Judiciously I waited until next morning. I can't explain how the texture of the crimp when drafted  felt so fulfilling. Add to that the shift of the color as it stretched and twisted in the process. Once home I quickly found online sources for all things spinning. I found The Knitters, Spinners, Weavers House Cleaning pages to be a good source for used spinning wheels. Going to the fiber festivals I was able to bring home my weight in roving.
 This is the first creative pursuit where I allowed myself a learning curve without castigation. Just the doing which I found calming in itself was enough. That the resulting yarn was imperfect was of little matter. No joke, I carried balls of my new yarn and showed it to cashiers in the supermarket or anyone who stood still long enough.
 Since then my spinner's trance continues with no slacking in sight.
Blog On!
Leslie