I have decided to do this yarn-spinning event for the first time this year.
I’m not really a spinner, at all. I did a few workshops years ago – one was my, I think 40th birthday present to myself? 41st? Long time ago anyway. I wasn’t very good, so I never continued, though I did purchase a very pretty drop spindle at one workshop, along with some fluff. I also bought a spinning wheel that was going cheap at some point, thinking I might use it (I didn’t), and picked up a castle wheel for pennies ag an auction a while ago with some vague idea of turning it into a lamp (I didn’t).
So that was the state of play until a couple of months ago when I decided to turn the “junk room” into a crafting/painting/computer fixing room. While cleaning, painting, moving, collecting, building, shovelling it all into place, I came across the drop spindle and fluff, and, being a lady of a certain age and thus glowing like a pig, I sat down and had a wee fiddle at it.
And now I have about a dozen spindles of various types and sizes, a fudge-ton of fibre,
… and a crown.
Why a crown? This is deep TdF lore. It has something to do with a Rie Cramer illustration in the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin, where the now-queen gets the better of the fairy; and something to do with encouraging a spinner who may be flagging during the 3-week TdF challenge. Mine is an old white-metal sugar-tongs that I turned into a choker, some 18ga silver-plated jewelry wire, and a bunch of stitch-markers.
I have no plan or goals for this, other than
- seeing if I can stay the course, and
- mastering at least one of the wheels.
I have some random fibre that I can practice spinning on the wheel, the Pandemic batt from Dye Candy, a rolag from I can’t remember but it looks like poppies, and a whole pile of interesting fibres from World of Wool, including 2 custom blends (20:80 bio-nylon with – 1. black Hebridean; and 2. dark-grey Herdwick) which are destined for winter socks.
Allons-y!
thornmaiden.com 