Tuesday, November 25, 2008

So, after you get your spinning wheel, you won't have to buy any more yarn, right?

Me "Oh....well.....um.....in THEORY......that is.......welllllllll,........no."

Him "Oh........So, it's just your thing, then? I should just get used to it? Like I do with the knitting thing?"

Me "Yeah. It's just my thing."

Him "Ok then."

Damn I love that man.

SO, I'm on a search. A search for my wheel. My very own spinning wheel. A very long search. A search that includes using every possible form of wheel I can get my hands on. It's a hell of a fun search. This search also includes a massive amount of fiber.


Is there anything cooler than that? That's MY DAUGHTER winding yarn spun by me onto a niddy noddy. Neither of us had a clue of how to use the damn thing. I mean, I've seen it used. In THEORY I know what it's supposed to do, but in practice it's a whole other world. God bless the internets. Youtube to the rescue. We watched a little clip, she sat down, and cranked it out. I was still trying to figure out what went where and how and she had it cranking out! The girl has a gift. She's got the Fiber Gift. But she doesn't much care. Ah well. She's 12. Maybe she'll pick things up for real when she's older. She is working her way through the Harry Potter books now and is excited about each part she comes to, so there's hope.

Yes, that's the migraine scrap blanket in the background along with a big ass bag of fiber. And yes, the migraine blanket actually DOES match the babypoop green colored 60's chair in the corner. Yes, it scares me a little bit too.

So, over the last week, I've quite literally spun my ass off. I can say literally as I've lost about 3 pounds in the last week and I think it's because all my spare time has been spent either spinning or prepping fiber instead of snacking. While I can knit and still snack, I'm not coordinated enough to snack and spin. NO FIBERS OR SPINNING WHEELS WERE HURT IN THE FOLLOWING STORY!!! I actually tried to lick up a piece of air popped popcorn (no oil or butter and no touching with the fingers to slime up said wheel) and it didn't go too well. Let's just say that having both feet moving up and down and fingers pinching and gliding and drafting all at the same time work ok, but sticking the tongue out was just one body part too much to handle and the whole thing exploded into a mess. Popcorn, fiber and ME went everywhere. It wasn't pretty. I actually had to pick myself up off the floor. Again, the WHEEL WAS NOT HURT IN ANY WAY. The fiber didn't even split off. I don't have many gifts, but one is an ability to fall down a half flight of stairs and not spill one drop of beer. This must translate to falling off my chair while spinning and not breaking the fiber. See? I didn't kill all my brain cells in college! I saved the important ones.

I've not taken the time to soak and hang dry the yarn yet and am posting pictures much like a naughty knitter that posts pictures of unblocked lace, but dammit I wanted to finally POST something here! I promise to be a good spinner and take proper pictures soon.

Here's what it looked like before.....






And here's what it looks like now...


Orange and Blue hand-dyed corriedale X fibers from yarn school Fall 08. The orange was spun as singles and plied from bobbins as usual. Beautiful. The blues were actually pit plied, but that's a whole other story. I'll post about that another day. Also beautiful. Next is two more bags' worth of the heavenly alpaca from Alpacas in Wildcat Hollow that I bought from Settler's Farm and some wool from Daisy, a sheep owned by Settler's Farm's owner, shown grazing in the picture above.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I'll be busy cooking, eating and knitting away! Hope you will be too!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...