Spinning sunday

FIRST EVER

I was finally able to spend some time on my new blending board this past week. I’d been saving roving scraps for a while, not because I had plans for them, but because someday I might have a use for them. They were perfect practice bits and here’s what they became:

My First Rolags

Not very pretty, but I’m itching to spin them. This will be anther first, I’ve never spun from a rolag.

TOMORROW WE DYE

For some reason I’ve gotten into the habit of doing my wool dyeing on Sundays. I have really nice Rambouillet wool that’s already carded and I have some green acid fast dye that I’ve not done anything with. Tomorrow will be more or less a dye experiment. Since my first attempt at space dyeing was a complete flop, I may give it another try, but then, again, I may just use the old drop it into the dye and don’t move it around too much method. That technique seems to work best for me. Results to follow…..

No one has ever become poor by giving. Anne Frank

I’ve decided to devote one blog post a week to another aspect
of fiberlove – spinning. Six months ago I became a spinner almost by accident when on a whim i made a drop spindle out of a dowel and a small wooden wheel like what would be on a small pull wagon or push toy.

My first attempts were …. interesting. I kept practicing and got a little better but my slow pace using the drop spindle was frustrating. It was easy to see that creating a pair of socks from roving to actual wearing was going to take months, if not years. This dampened my enthusiasm a bit and planted the idea of someday owning a spinning wheel. I did some window shopping on the Internet, feeding my imagination a little more.

Then, remarkably, I heard through the grapevine that someone who worked for the same facility I’d retired from had an Ashford Traveller wheel for sale, and get this: in my price range! This clearly was meant to be, no doubt about it. So, almost before I knew it, I was sitting at my own wheel, surfing YouTube for spinning demos, trying to get a handle on basic spinning techniques. Did I mention that before this I’d never even SEEN a spinning wheel? Gotta love YouTube. The rest, as they say, is history. By the way, my wheel’s name is Violet and yeah, I’m one of those weird (I say eccentric) people that name things. Meet Violet.