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

Serious Motivation to Learn to Spin

The New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Festival was over the top for me this year for many reasons that I will go in to at another time. Now I just want to show this shawl that was on display in the building where the pot luck was hosted on Saturday night. I am seated, eating and zoning out after wonderful but long day. My mind is compiling multiple lists of things I need to do for future shows. I am talking stuff like things I should have taken along, designs should have made more of and the ever present list of reasons for not eating more of the cookies in the booth around the corner despite the fact that they are the best I have ever eaten. Next year, I dare you to try the ginger cookies and tell me that better ones exist at ( a location you can name and from where you can supply a sample.) In that spacey state I see the above shawl hanging on the wall across the room. Like Tony in the dance scene from West Side Story I walk to the shawl and stand transfixed. A handwritten note next to it expains that it was the result of misreading a pattern and is signed by the maker, Ingrid Bird. Back at the table I wonder aloud about the maker only to find that she is seated at the table. In that off-handed way that the truly gifted have she explains what she did to make it. I am now determined to try/do this myself.

Thanks, Ingrid!

Blog On!

Leslie