Spindly

In the spirit of Anything worth doing is worth overdoing, the Keyboard Biologist has jumped into spinning with both feet. If you have been following along at Claudia's Blog you got some forewarning of what could be coming. Now, finally, all will be revealed.

First off, it's a little hard to spin anything without any spinning equipment. I think I showed an enormous amount of restraint by not buying a wheel to get started on (okay, maybe not so much restraint, as anyone who has been reading along for a while might remember that my mother's Ashford Traditional is still taking up residence in my house). Instead, it seemed like the best way to get started might be to invest in something a bit more modest, like a handspindle.

Of course, as I would learn later, and as those of you who have them and love them already know, spindles are a little bit like potato chips, it's hard to have just one. Hand spindles come in different weights, sizes and woods; the shaping of the whorls gives them different properties. Knowing which one to select would have been close to impossible without good advice. The first of which was: make sure it spins without wobbiling. The second bit of which was: your first spindle should be relatively heavy and be able to spin relatively slowly.

The thing I learned on my own: spindles, like yarn, will talk to you. They know who they are meant to be for, and they will call out to you and make sure you know that. Even if you don't realy know what you are doing yet, when they are in your hands, you will have this feeling that you and this spindle are meant to be. At least that was the case for the two that left the Journey Wheel booth with me.

Two Beautiful Bosworth Spindles and Some Fiber from Stefania

The spindle on the left has a what I think is a Grenadilla whorl (unfortunately I have misplaced the tag)combined with a rosewood shaft. It's considered a midi, but is pretty close in weight to the tulipwood maxi spindle on the right because of the weight of the wood in the whorl. The midi spindle is probably a tool above what I am ready for, but once I picked it up, I simply couldn't put it down. The tulipwood maxi is likely to be my major working spindle for a while. And it should also be able to do double duty as a plying spindle. Both are extremely gorgeous in person. It is awfully nice to have tools that are both beautiful and functional at the same time.

The two rovings that are below the spindles come from Handspun by Stefania. Both these rovings are colored with natural dyes. The blue Coopworth is dyed with Indigo and the 3 pink striped Corriedale is dyed with cochineal. These rovings were, of course, selected for their beautiful colors, but also so that I could have two relatively good rovings to begin learning on. The Coopworth is longer staple than the Corriedale, but both are long enough to provide a good starting for a beginner. (The colors are a little bit better in the thumbnail chips than in the photo with the spindles. You can click on the thumbnails if you want a better look.)

Is there more? Of course there's more! But if I spend all morning writing about it, I won't get to play with those lovely spindles.

P.S. Thank you to everyone who sent me good wishes on Friday. It's much appreciated. Being a grown up isn't all it's cracked up to be, but every challenging experience is a means to becoming a stronger, wiser person.
P.P.S. The Blog of the Day isn't gone, just temporarily suspended while I work through my MS&W posts.