Thinking about Spinning

I really do love my drop spindles. I love the way they feel and the rhythm of the spinning process. I love watching the yarn on the shaft grow and grow as I work my way through whatever roving I'm spinning from. In chemistry, people talk of state transformations where an element or compound changes from a gas to a liquid or a liquid to a solid by applying pressure or decreasing temperature (or both). The different states, gas, liquid or solid, each have defining qualities that make the states distinct from each other. And the transformations can occur in the opposite direction as well -- going from solid to liquid to gas.

The fiber arts seem to have their own phase transformations... from sheep to clean fiber from fiber to yarn from yarn to knitted or woven object and sometimes from knitted object to felted object. Some of the phases can be reversed... certainly it is possible to turn a knitted item back into yarn and, while not particularly fun, it is possible to return yarn back into something tha has the consistancy of raw fiber. Each phase has it's own unique properties that make it interesting and some input of energy is required to convert each phase into the next.

Right now I am very fixated on the fiber phase. I'm interested in understanding the process of making fiber take up color and making fiber into yarn. I'm interested in understanding the effects of painting a roving in a particular way when it gets translated into a spun yarn. I'm interested in the technology that can be used to turn fiber into yarn.

And thus, when I'm not communing with my drop spindle, I'm working my way through a couple of great books. The first is Deb Menz' Color in Spinning.

This book doesn't go into color theory quite as deeply as Deb Menz other book (which I also own), Color Works, however it definitely explains well the dynamics of color in the process of yarn creation. Why do some colors, even in small amounts, seem to dominate a yarn? How can such a color be balanced? How do different depths of shade work together? What helps to make a color palette, and thus, the final yarn more sophisticated or more boisterous. She also provides excellent lessons in dying and handpainting, including safety tips. And the color photos in the book are just stunning. It really makes me want to jump into the exploration of color in fiber feet first and just keep on going.

The other book that I've been reading through, little by little, in hopes that it will help me understand more about the mechanics and technical terms of spinning, is the Alden Amos Big Book of Hand Spinning.

When I realized that I had gotten the hang of the drop spindle and that it was only a matter of time until I started to do this spinning thing on a wheel, I decided that it was time to invest some more time understanding what people meant when they mentioned "orifices" or "scotch tension" or talked about the "grist" of the yarn. I wanted to know more about why certain wheel styles had evolved. This book definitly provides all that an more. I'm not that far through yet (it's fairly dense and it takes me time to absorb it) but I've already learned more about how yarn is measured and defined than I ever thought I would know and I found his discussion about the process of wool preparation to be fascinating -- in a "that's cool but I definitely want someone else to do it for me" kind of way. Amos has a folksy style that you will either love of be made crazy by, but it's clear that this is one of those reference bible type books that will be a staple in my library for some time to come.