Spinning: June 2005 Archives
...of this little skein.
After the camera test last night, I finished drop spindling the small remaining amount of sunset colored roving that I had. Tonight, accompanyied by a nice glass wine, I used an Andean plying bracelet to help me turn that single into a two ply yarn. On my last plying adventure, before I set the twist, I had a skein that definitly wanted to twist on itself a little bit. Tonight, I tried to focus my attention on making sure that I had a "balanced" yarn -- that is, once plied, the yarn didn't really want to twist around itself. At first, for some reason, balanced always seemed undertwisted to me. But now that I look at the skein, it seems about right. It still needs a bath to set the twist, but that is a project for tomorrow, I think.
This skein feels like my first real, something I would actually knit with, skein of yarn. Not perfect, but definitely an effort I'm proud of (ask my poor husband, he's been subjected to looking at it several times tonight). I now feel like I understand the basics of spinning with a drop spindle.
In the comments to my last post, Nik asked for some recommendations for learning. The best one I can give: go to MS&W with Cladia, Julie, Leigh and the Harlot. I know that's a bit hard to achieve, so I'd also like to recommend the book that Julie recommended on her blog a while ago:
as well as Ameilia Carlson's "Spindling: the Basics" booklet that I got from the Journey Wheel folks while I was at MS&W.
This go at spinning is actually my second. Sometime back, Julie tried to teach me and I just couldn't figure it out (and it wasn't because she was a bad teacher -- more like I wasn't really ready to want to understand the process). Being able to watch a bunch of different people with different styles helped me realize that I don't have to worry about a "right" or a "wrong" way. It also made me appreciate that in order to do it right, I needed to understand what I was doing. I guess that's the scientist in me, but I do a lot better when I'm not just "following instructions".
I also tried to take my time and not have expectations of perfection. I discovered that pre-drafting is a good thing, and that there's nothing wrong with divinding your roving into whatever size chunks you find easiest to work with. I spent a lot of time spinning and parking and letting the twist move gradually as I learned to deal with handling the fiber. I'm still pretty slow, but now that I have some of the basic motionsin place, I'm sure that my speed will pick up with time.
I also followed the advice of every spinner I have met so far and picked fibers that I wanted to touch. The reality is that sheep are not going extinct, and even if I mess up a whole bunch of lovely cormo, it isn't the end of the world. Better to work with fibers that make me happy and accept that along the path to learning I will have some things that I don't want to look at later on.
Finally, pick a spindle that talks to you. A spindle needs to be well balanced, but it also needs to be something that you want in your hands, that you enjoy looking at, that just "feels right". I'm happy that I started with the two lovely Bosworth spindles that I got and I like to think that these are endowed with special good vibes since some spinners I respect a great deal spun a little bit with them before they came home with me to Chicago.
