As if. I said I’d spin every day, so every day it is.
While out in the rain this morning, I spotted something odd on one of the rose bushes I inherited from my mother:
Same rose bush, different-coloured roses!
I’m pretty sure it didn’t do this for my mother, or she’d have shown me. Hopefully it’s not a problem, like lack of feeding or something.
Today, I finished up the 3rd of my Poppy Fields rolags. It’s went rather smoother than the other two, mainly because I relented on using it to learn long-draw and am instead spinning it as it comes. The sari silk is in no way blended into the rolags, it’s just randomly distributed lumps, so I just stop spinning when I come to one and winkle the silk fibres apart as much as possible to lie parallel along the single. I don’t always succeed, but the single is more consistent now and the silk slubs aren’t as huge. The drafting is a kind of short backward draw, between slubs, and not spun too tightly.
I also did some plying, weighing and measuring the length of what I’ve spun so far:
Donegal Tweed, 2 ply, approx 12wpi, 33.6m.
Mystery wool top, 2 ply, approx 20wpi, 33.4m.
Shetland moorit top, 2 ply, approx 20wpi, 54.5m.
I also tired of faffing about with crochet hooks and made myself a new orifice hook with 10ga brass jewellery wire. My hands hurt after making those spirals, lemmetellya. I need to invest in some sturdier jewellery pliers.
I suspect this gaudy object will be harder to lose.
And so to bed, with a final pic of my first 2 bobbins of Herdwick/bio-nylon singles, where they’ll rest for da or so until they’re plied:
Herdygurdy and the 3rd Poppy Fields rolag awaiting plying.
Between injury and family stuff, I have not done much spinning, but I have spun something every day so I’m still meeting my TdF goal.
D+7 challenge: Glitter. And wouldn’t you know it, another delivery from WoW*, including two glittery tops from their recent Fibre Friday offerings:
GL13, Glitter White/RedGL18, Glitter White/Multi
Both are 70:30 merino-stellina (polyester-nylon) blends, where the merino is white and the stellina provides the colour. What I find interesting is the overall colour of each: the red stellina results in an overall deep pink hue, and the multi-coloured stellina a soft grey.
Salvador Dali’s The Eye (1945)
I decided to spin the white-red blend on a spalted beech drop spindle from Thomas Wood & Wool. One part of the spalting resembles Salvador Dali’s The Eye, so the spindle’s name is Dali. I remember reading somewhere that roving? top? is created by combining 3 pencil rovings into one, and that the 3 parts can quite easily be separated. I unfolded the blend and lo! it was so! Not terribly obvious, but I broke a hand-length off and divided it in 3 for spinning. Out of concern for the single getting too thin and ending up spinning just stellina, I made the effort to spin a wee bit thicker than I normally do. I also twirled the spindle slower – which meant it spun for shorter runs – and allowed it to “un-spin” until the single was only slightly twisted, just beyond the point of falling apart. The result looks like a woollen-spun single, and the 2-ply will likely be somewhere between sportweight and DK.
Glitter Red/White on Dali – you can see the “eye” just below the reflection.
D+8 challenge: Fractal spinning. Sorry, no. Not only do I not have any suitable fibre, I have almost zero interested in the effect, having opinions about multi-coloured yarn. I do a fair amount of colourwork, but generally I want my colours to be solid or at most heathered (I am also a hypocrite and love more random multis – see above). I did go and look at some fractal spinning tutorials, but that’s as far as I care to go. Instead, I continued with my Herdwick/bio-nylon spinning.
Other round-ups: I finished spinning the angora bunny sample on Enola the micro Turk. I will probably follow this white rabbit down a warren of textile physics at some point, because it. took. forever. to spin, not because of the difficulty of doing so (though it was tricksy) but because the single is sooooo long. Angora fibre must be very lightweight compared to other fibres, because I swear the meterage from this teaspoon-sized sample must be comparable to that from the 25g of Shetland I spun the other day. It might even be longer. I do spin these samples extremely finely, but neither of the other two I’ve done have produced so much:
The Angora rabbit sample – I think if it was 2-plied, it would come in around 40wpi or higher (lace- or cobweb-weight)
I doubt I’d be able to spin this on my wheel, certainly not at my level of what I laughingly call ‘skill’, but I wonder if I could spin a blend of Angora with something else? Where the Angora is there just to be fluff, not fibre? Possibly with a longwool?
Anyway. I also worked a wee bit more on the Seacell on my new Enid Ashcroft spindle, Enda. I’m consciously spinning it a bit thicker, around 20wpi, but keeping it worsted:
Seacell on Enda
It’s quite lustrous and silky, though more like Tussah silk than the posh stuff as it has a grabbier handle. There’s a little of the feel of synthetic silks which normally have me scrubbing my hands raw, but overall it’s silky rather than squeaky. The colour is rather like the yellowing you see in vintage linens, so this would be a nice choice for an instant heirloom, woven, knit or crocheted. I’m seeing a lovely baptismal shawl, though given my track record it ain’t gonna happen!
Allons-y, there, and everywhere…
*: Including a gorgeous black and lime-ish gold Tub of Joy, 50g Angora bunny fibre, 300g scoured Wensleydale (I think my finger slipped when ordering – I meant to get the carded top…), some crystal Angelina, and a Beginner’s Dyeing Kit.
Today’s challenge was to spin something watery or blue.
If you know me, or have read any of my blog, you know that the one colour I just can’t be doing with is blue – or bleurgh, as I call it. It is true that sometimes I have knit with blue – usually baby jumpers or the like for baby boys, of which I once had one – but it does not feature greatly in my stash, and there’s not a sausage of blue in my admittedly quite small spinning stash.
But I do have some Seacell fibre… and Enda needs a run in.
Whether I’ll do much depends on how the rest of the day goes. I hurt my back somehow during my energy-crash nap yesterday.
And I’m significantly older than 30, so I’m pretty much crippled…
After yesterday’s Day of Grey, I felt like a bit of sunshine – which is today’s #teamwow challenge, to spin outside. A glance outside revealed fog, so not doing that! Still, it’s only 8am, and misty summer mornings in Ireland often turn to blistering blue skies by around 10, so I will possess my soul in patience till then.
But I still don’t feel like continuing with the Herdwick, at least not immediately. So I am going to attempt to spin a set of rolags I got from Etsy seller, DorIdeas, called Poppy Fields:
Gradient/Fractal Merino & Sari silk Rolags
Poppies are my favourite flower. There’s something in their rush towards the sun, their translucent vividness, and their brevity that grabs me. Can’t grow them to save my life, but at least I now live in a house where a previous occupant dotted big clumps of these wonderful flowers around the garden, so I get to admire them. If I’m quick!
This will be a challenge for me. Most of my spinning to date has been worsted-spun, or worsted-adjacent – I don’t really know what I’m doing, but I’ve mostly produced thin, smooth singles. But rolags are a woollen prep, which I’ve never knowingly done. After viewing a couple of JillianEve Youtube videos, I think I’m supposed to do a long draw on a slow treadle… I’ll figure it out! But I have only 80g of this fibre and that makes me want to cry. I always have problems thinking what to do with multicoloured yarns, but so little? and woollen-spun? Even if I leave it as singles, that’s not enough for a pair of socks, assuming I can spin it as fingering…
10am.
Well phooey. Overcast, windy, and promising rain. That’s the thing about foggy Irish mornings – sometimes they LIE. All you can do is wait and see.
I have spun my first rolag, the darkest one at the top left of the pic. It has frequent flashes of green and fewer of red on a black base. I think the red and green are sari silk slubs because they are extremely shiny but don’t want to draft. My fumble-handedness doesn’t help, with sensation in only 6 out of 10 digits. I should really talk to my GP about this… Too late today, I’ll have to call tomorrow morning. My first woollen long draw was less than successful. I don’t think I got beyond about 10cm/4in “long” before the draft started falling apart, and the result is thick-and-thin even where there are no slubs. I’ve also decided to spin each rolag separately, with a view to making a pair of 2-at-a-time gloves/mitts using the start of the yarn for one glove and the end for the other, IYSWIM. I think a pair of poppy gloves would be very pretty, don’t you??
Now I’m going to put contact lenses in, I’ve had enough of these stupid varifocals for today.
8pm.
I spun a second rolag, during which An Caitín Deasa came to berate me for not sitting on the sofa, where she likes to snuggle round my bum:
Outraged, so she was. And now my wheel belongs to her.
Fortunately, she didn’t discover all the lovely soft floofy wool or it would now be hers, too – though given her fondness for rolling around on my son’s sweaty socks, I don’t think any of the floof here is stinky enough for her.
Shortly afterwards I had one of my energy crashes, and just about stayed awake long enough to fall into bed. I woke around 6pm, but I haven’t the energy to do much, and I appear to have pulled a muscle in my back whilst asleep… So this is the sum total of what I’ve achieved today:
It’s lumpy and bumpy, sewing-thread thin in parts and super-bulky slubs in others, so I don’t know how it would average out or if it’s worth plying. Ho hum…
Today’s #teamwow challenge is to create a blend. Not only do I not have a way of blending – no drum carder, no blending board – but blending fibres… isn’t really where I’m at. I prefer my fibre and yarn 100% pure, and I’m not a fan of the clown barf. I’ll put up with some nylon in my sock yarn, or a blend for fragile/expensive fibres, and I have been known to work with multicoloured yarn, but it’s not where my heart is. So this challenge is a BIG challenge for me.
But, but, but. What if it is a blend that I have caused to be created? I didn’t mix it up myself, but it wouldn’t exist without me? Okay, the latter is pushing it, I’m pretty sure this blend exists and is available to anyone, but this precise bag of blended fibre within my arm’s reach certainly wouldn’t have existed without me. Ta-da! It’s my Herdygurdy blend of 75% dark grey Herdwick and 25% bio-nylon from World of Wool! I got this, and another blend of black Hebridean and bio-nylon, to knit socks. Here is how far I’ve got so far:
Herdygurdy on the bobbin
My first thoughts are that some of what I’m assuming is the bio-nylon is falling out during drafting, and, while what’s left goes into the orifice smoothly enough, it doesn’t want to wrap around the bobbin with the Herdwick, instead sticking out. I’m not going to panic just yet, as it might settle down when it’s plied, washed, thwacked and balled, but I’m going to be a bit careful how I handle it.
I’ve also put Enola back in harness to spin my next 5g sample, which is angora. It’s not the easiest thing I’ve ever spun. The fibres are teeny, and my hands are not as reliable these days with cubital inflammation numbing the ring and little finger of my left hand and whatever it is that’s causing the numbness in both thumbs, but I think I’ve got the trick of it now. However, I’ve only managed to spin about a third of the sample, so no pics yet.
I did get a parcel in the post today, and I’m so excited! It’s an Enid Ashcroft spindle in oak burr with an African Padauk shaft! These spindles are like hens’ teeth – they no sooner appear on Etsy than they are gone. I could not believe when I clicked through from her Insta and there were 3 -3! – left, so I snaffled this one up straightaway. I haven’t tried it out yet, but I think I will call it Enda. No, that’s not a mis-spelling, it’s an Irish boy’s name, a saint’s name (Saint Enda of Aran – yes, those Aran Islands!), and the name of a former Taoiseach (Irish prime minister), Enda Kenny, who had quite the burr (get it? oak burr…). This is Enda:
I posted to the Tour de Fleece 2023 Facebook group about my Shapwick Blaise wheel and I think it’s had the most engagement of anything I’ve ever posted on social media outside my Quora content!
She is an absolute beauty, but there’s so little information about this wheel that I’m slightly despairing of ever putting her in working order. I found someone via Google who had recently (May ’23) reconditioned a Herring Gordon, but their website no longer exists apart from a few scrapes on the Wayback Machine. Frank Herring is still in business, but the website doesn’t even mention their history of producing these beautiful and unusual wheels… I will email them, but I’m almost as fond of email as I am of cold-callers so it will take some time for me to work up the courage to engage.
I’m on #TeamWoW, World of Wool‘s TdF team, and today being Stage 4 (I think?) the challenge is to spin some Shetland. I got another delivery this morning from WoW with Shetland wool – the Woodland Collection, and the Breed Discovery pack – but I’ve decided to spin from a colour pack of Shetland top that I picked up at Woolfest instead. I picked the dark-ish fawn colour for a change of pace – I have lots of black, grey, and white fibre to work on, but not much in the brown spectrum. I think the Shetland word for this colour is Moorit. I also have dark brown, fawn, and Musket, a greyish mid-brown. The plan was to spin the whole 25g, then ply it. Here’s the whole thing, wrapped around my homemade wrist distaff:
Shetland top (probably moorit) on a wrist distaff.
And the Fates must have been smiling on me, because it went to plan! I cannot stress how rarely this happens for me. I am a disaster magnet. The house could have burned down, I could have been struck by lightening, the wool might have had hatching tarantula eggs in it – none of these happened. The phone didn’t even ring! Okay, I cheated a bit – instead of plying on my wheel, I used my ancient Daruma Home Twister, a ball-winder which has a plying attachment. It’s not ideal, so the yarn is not perhaps as tightly plied as it should be – I don’t care. Today, I have done what I set out to do, even if the end result is kinda half-arsed. Gotta say, too, this Shetland top has survived brilliantly for being shoved in a paper bag in my junk room for years. It fed beautifully through my hands, and there’s only the tiniest dot of waste – you can see it at the bottom of the balling attachment:
Shetland 2-ply on a Daruma Home Twister, with remaining fluff at the bottom right.
Today, I only continued to spin the white mystery top on my wheel, and let Enola rest. I have 11 samples total in my WoW sample card, 2 already completed, and this is a 3-week event – 4 if you count the Tour de Femmes – so it’s okay to space things out a bit.
So I thought I’d talk about one of my other wheels. I have 3, one the Freecycled Ashford Traditional that I’m using for TdF, and two others that require some TLC. This is Blaise:
Blaise
I bought her for mere pennies at a local auction – about £10-15 I think, and I may* have bought her unsold after the actual auction took place. I have no idea how she wound up in Darkest Fermanagh, but it’s probably an interesting tale.
Here’s what I do know: she is not, as spinning wheel afficionados might think, a Herring Gordon wheel – the one that won a London Design Centre award for its aesthetics – but a Shapwick Blaise wheel made by S.H. (Simon) Williams on behalf of Frank Herring & Sons. Shapwick was in business for only about 3 years in the 1980s: Williams may or may not have continued to make wheels afterwards, I don’t know. The Blaise wheel might have been sold as a Herring Gordon – again, I don’t know. I was able to learn that only 1,000 Herring Gordons were ever sold, but I’m not sure if that figure includes the Shapwick Blaises. Regardless, this is a fairly rare English wheel. Frank Herring & Sons still exist as an arts and crafts supplier in Dorchester, but there is no mention of their own-brand wheels on their website. I shall have to contact them, though, due to the state poor Blaise is in.
Both Gordons and Blaises were made from laminated beech plywood, which was then bent rather than cut into shape. The drive wheel is a single length of plywood, bent into a perfect circle with only one seam. On some Blaises, the wheel is a solid circle, but this one has 4 spokes, made from 2 lengths of plywood curved at about a 135-degree angle about a flattened middle where the lengths are connected about the wheel-hub. The mother-of-all is another length bent into an open rectangle, as is the flier. The table and legs are formed from 2 lengths of plywood, bent into a split table to accommodate the drive wheel, then elegantly splayed to make the legs. Technically there are 3 legs, as the 2 lengths come together to form a single leg under the flier assembly; under the wheel, the lengths form 2 legs, separated by a movable piece of wood that appears to function as a wheel brake. There’s a Lazy Kate on the table – 2 pegs for bobbins. Even the treadle is elegantly curved. There are no sharp corners anywhere on the wheel, all having been sanded down. It really is a most exquisite piece of craftsmanship. Apparently, the Herring Gordon (and therefore possibly also the Shapwick Blaise) could run as a single drive band machine with Scotch tensioning, or as a double drive.
Now, what’s wrong. Blaise has no drive band, though that’s easily fixed. If there was a spring on the Scotch tensioning line, it’s gone. The orifice hook, which normally fits into a hole on the table, is also missing. Only the bobbin in the flier remains, of the 3 with which this model was originally shipped – and these are gigantic bobbins that are likely difficult to replace. The footman appears to have been replaced with a piece of cord – how does that even work? But worst of all is that there’s no sign of the whorl. Was the previous owner not using the whorl? How? Or did they remove it because it was damaged, and never got round to replacing it? I know there’s people out there who can fix and recondition wheels, even one like this – but that will be another day’s rabbit hole.
Any information, advice, craftsperson recommendations welcome!
So that is my day. I could take another terrible photo of my progress, but I’ve only filled the bobbin I showed from yesterday’s spinning, so it’s neither interesting nor necessary.
Allons-y!
* : I have memory problems. You’ll see this phrasing a lot with me. My brain is borked – memory-deficient dyslexia and fibro fog. If I don’t take notes, write a blog post, or elaborate small details into a big story in my head, I will forget.
This is the peripatetic sample card I couldn’t find yesterday:
World of Wool sample card. From top right: light brown de-haired yak; soybean; white angora; milk protein; pineapple fibre; banana; mint fibre; Whiteface Woodland; lotus fibre; adult mohair; kid mohair.
World of Wool gives you the option to purchase small samples of their fibres – 5-10g, depending on the fibre – to try before you buy. While too small to do anything much with, given the dizzying array of fibres, it’s worth it. Sometimes you know by the feel that something is not what you want to spin – I can’t say I’m terribly interested in vegan fibres that are basically nylon, acrylic, etc, so I’m never going to order them. But I am intrigued enough with, say, pineapple fibre to want to see what it’s like without committing to spinning up 50g, especially if it turns out to be horrible (I’ll let you know on, umm, Wednesday). I spun the yak when the card arrived a while back. It’s fiddly – very fluffy and wispy, and you have to be quite stern with it to make it adhere together long enough to get a thread. But it is oh so soft and lovely that it is well worth the effort. think if I was to get yak again, I’d blend it with something more cooperative, like merino (or get WoW to do me a custom blend). I haven’t bothered plying it – I don’t plan to do so with any of these samples as there really isn’t enough yardage to bother. Instead I just wound the single onto a bit of card, and will keep it in its pocket for future reference and stroking.
Today, I began spinning after lunch, starting with the soybean sample on Enola, my 10g black bog-oak Turkish spindle from Ian at The Wood Emporium: teeny, dark and rather fast, but with hidden metal, like the Enola Sherlock character. The soybean sample was quite voluminous for its weight, and this wonderful mustard yellow. I was able to pre-draft it into 5 ‘locks’, whereupon it took on the colour and appearance of baby hair in my family, a kind of lustrous primrose:
Enola and the locks.See what I mean?
Also very fluffy and very, very sheddy. There’s will o’ the wisps of the stuff floating around my craft room now. It was an odd one, full of contrasts. Very short fibres, but I had to draw it out longer than I’m comfortable with – I’m not an experienced spinner and have just graduated from death-grip park and draft, I have only the vaguest idea of the other spinning techniques, so don’t be coming at me with your forward and backward short draw, double drafting, Texas long draw, 52 pick-up – I’m just happy that the fibre is moving onto the spindle without my hands being frozen into rictus claws after the first five minutes. And the fibre was a little like silk – super-soft but strong – while also having the squeaky feeling of a plant fibre like ramie. It’s another one that might be better blended due to the shortness of the individual fibres, but I can’t think with what. Maybe another, coarser plant fibre, trading softness for strength? Or one of he scratchier wools, for a bit of sproinginess?
I got distracted midway by deliveries (another book, and a box of gluten-free flours to try in the sourdough starter I’ve adopted) and sunshine, and decided to continue the spin outside, but no sooner had I got my hammock seat set up than it started bucketing down. Then the damn dog escaped again, which is bad as I live in sheep-and-shotgun country and said dog is a sheepdog school flunk-out I took on when he proved too independent* of the shepherd. He still wants to round up sheep, but local farmers don’t distinguish between unwanted “help” and sheep-worrying. As a result I was late getting back to the second half of my daily spin: the dreaded wheel.
With quick run-through some wheel-spinning tutorials on Youtube, I made a start. I used some roving that might have been nice once upon a time when I bought it, but which is now compacted and a wee bit felted. I figured it wouldn’t upset me too much if I wasted it, and I did waste a whole chunk! But look!
Actual string!
It’s not very much, but it’s nearly consistent with no lumps. It’s similar to the thickness I spin on my drop spindles, which makes a reasonable 2-ply fingering yarn. I’m so pleased with myself, I’ll be unbearable for a few days.
*: It’s a problem with Border Collies. They’re very smart so some decide they know better than the shepherd, and pretend deafness to command.
My spinning setup in my very scruffy, half-painted craft room – excuse the mess: it’s much tidier than when the transformation from junk-room to craft room started, but it’s still evolving!
Oh my giblets, what a start!
I’ll preface by saying that my vague plan for TdF23 was to spin every day – that’s all. Firming up slightly, I thought each day I’d spin a 10g sample from a World of Wool sample pack on one of my drop spindles, and then hit up the spinning wheel with something more weighty, like the 400g Herdwick ‘n’ bionylon WoW custom blend destined for sock knitting, or the Dye Candy art batt, etc. I don’t do detailed schedules and timings. I used to, but the universe has all kinds of ways of tearing up my plans and throwing them in my face, whether or not there are any plans in the first place, so nowadays I save the time and energy for the inevitable disaster management instead.
Well, first I couldn’t find the @&%$ing sample pack, but that wasn’t much of a problem. While looking for the samples, I found a remnant of some tweedy floof I picked up on a visit to Donegal Yarns. It wasn’t meant for hand-spinning – it was some intermediate stage in their processing of fleece into yarn, and by now it’s only fit for stuffing cushions. When I got my drop spindles out earlier this year, I’d spun up the rest and a brutal job it was too, basically just ripped clumps out of it and hoped for the best. And yes, it’s a lumpy bumpy yarn – but here’s the thing: I bought a cone of that same colour on my visit, and it’s not wildly different to my handspun.
So I spun up this remnant in lieu of one of the samples on my big yew Turkish spindle, whom I have named Bow Diddly:
Bow Diddly with his little bog-oak friend Enola, and the green tweed.
Enola stood ready for the 10g samples, which I promptly found after finishing plying the tweed. Of course. Oh well, at least they’re there for tomorrow.
So then I hied me the 50cm or so to my spinning wheel, and this is where the trouble really began. And begat more problems. And then some. The wheel is one I got on Freecycle at least 10 years ago. I never actually used it. Although I’d taken it along to a spinning workshop a few years ago, it misbehaved, even flummoxing the instructor, so I’d ended up using a borrowed wheel. I did look into finding someone who could repair it, but it would have meant shipping it over to England and then there was the whole pandemic thing so that didn’t happen. And today, sitting before it, I realised I didn’t even know what make it was anymore… And the orifice hook was gone, and the drive band kept popping off, and why is there fishing line on it…???
Onto Youtube to look for some Setting Up A Spinning Wheel For Dummies videos. No worries, I’ve done some spinning, so I’d fulfilled my obligations for the day, and isn’t this spinning-related too?
Eight hours later I picked myself off the floor where I’d fainted from hunger. But I had learned SO MUCH. Like I apparently have a Ashcroft Traditional, probably 1982, and it’s a double drive – but is set up as a single drive. And you guys, the whole maiden (?) thingy can be moved sideways! which lines up the groove on the flier with the groove on the wheel – which was the reason the drive band kept flying off – they weren’t aligned properly! It finally spun properly, but the yarn wouldn’t wind onto the bobbin, so I went down another rabbit hole where I spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to find a replacement whorl for my flyer (learning in the interim that I had a jumbo flier) before realising that Traditionals don’t have one (or at least they don’t have one that screws on after the bobbin…). Then I found a video showing how to put together a Traditional from bits of lumber without reducing it to kindling in the process as I was by then tempted to do… and this is where I learned about the fishing line thingy! Scotch tensioning! Which has nothing to do with Scotland, even though there’s an Irish tensioning which I still have to figure out.
Hmm… Irish tension… Nope. Get thee behind me, Spinning. (Laterz).
Apparently the fishing line (which is attached to a wooden knob at the front of the wheel and goes through a hook at the back) is placed over the groove in the bobbin, and secured via the spring on the end to a wee hook on the other side of the maiden assembly. The line can then be tightened by turning the wooden knob, which has the effect of of slowing the rotation of the bobbin with respect to the flier, which in turn allows the yarn to wind onto the bobbin!!
Somewhere in amongst all this the flaming drive band snapped, and if the postie hadn’t been right outside delivering a book I’ve been waiting for, I’d have hoofed the bloody thing out the window where it would have landed on top of him. But as I want him to keep bringing me books, I refrained. Luckily there is no shortage of long, fibre-y stuff about the place. Who’d have thought a knitter would have the like?!
So that was my Day 1. I think the wheel is operating correctly and and is ready to tackle the blizzard of floss awaiting…
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.
thornmaiden.com 