Learning

I’ve begun spinning.

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My first attempts with a bottom whorl spindle, plied and then set.

It’s a tiny amount of yarn, inconsistently made. And yet I like it. I like it a lot. It charms me.

Like a seed, brown in my palm but full of promise.

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The spindle, full of my second attempt. This time with the coloured roving that came with the kit. Things are getting better. I’m not always consistent in my thickness, but that’s partly because I’m trying to sort out which thickness works best. The spindle is pretty heavy.

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It’s interesting to note the differences between the spun and unspun fibre. Spinning seems to darken the colours a lot, which makes sense since one of the things you’re doing is adding shadow. Each twisted fibre creates its own little bit of texture that casts a shadow.

Matthias continues to enjoy spinning. With two spinners in the house and one batch of roving, there’s going to be trouble. So I’ve begun falling down into the deep, deep hole that is looking at fibre. Gaia’s Colours is a Canadian shop with an incredible colour sense and good prices. On the other hand, there are fibres that sparkle, shine, and evoke the Irish seaside at Bohemia Fibers.  Not to mention the gorgeous earth tones at Briar Rose Fibers that would flatter my colouring.

All of this means that I’m enjoying myself and planning to enter the Tour de Fleece (Flickr link; Ravelry link). This cracks me up a bit, since I’d always viewed it as being very much something for other people. But here I am.  It’s time for the cyclists to battle and the spinners to spin.  And I think that spinning a little bit every day during the Tour would be very good for getting a sense of what I’m doing.  Let’s hope the new rovings arrive before we run out.

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