Spinning!

It took all the strength in my body not to make a pun of my title, using a certain well-known 80s’ hit single. Whew!

Last weekend, I was lucky enough to be able to take Barbara Parry’s Introduction to Handspinning class at WEBS. I’ve been knitting for five years, and while I’m far from knowing everything there is to know about knitting, I’ve been feeling like all of my projects are a little stale. I felt this way about reading way back in high school: I felt like I was just punching into work every time I opened a book. It had gotten to be the same way with knitting. It’s my hobby and my passion — it shouldn’t be a drag!

What I realize now is that once you read or knit enough, you’re going to feel the need to create your own stories, your own yarn. They’re almost the same thing; yarn is a story that begins with the plant or the animal which is the source of your fiber and ends with you, running it through your fingers and looping it around sticks to make something beautiful. In either case, you start with a lot of raw material and inspiration, and end up with something that will keep you warm and make you think.

The class itself was lovely — Barbara Parry, the instructor, owns Foxfire Fiber and Design up in Shelburne, so she lives and breathes fiber, quite literally! There were seven of us in the class and almost all the other students had previous spinning experience, so I was bottom of the class from the first moment (Remedial Spinner, that’s me). We started out on drop spindles, which was a great way of observing how the twist of the spindle, the size of the whorl, and the fiber all combined to create yarn.

The wheel-spinning was really hard for me. I used a Louet S10 double-treadle wheel for the first day and a combination of not drafting enough (pulling apart the fibers so they don’t simply twist over and over on each other, turning into a thick ropy mess ask me how I know) and not maintaining a consistent treadling speed really set me back. I was grumpy, tense and frustrated through most of the first day. Barbara Parry had to sit with me and treadle while I drafted! So embarrassing — but she’s a wonderful instructor, and so patient.

The second day was much easier; something clicked and I was spinning! Not well, but there I was, making my first real single, which was quickly followed by my first real two-ply:

Leicester/Alpaca Two-Ply

Romney Roving Single

Most of the yarn I’ve made is badly over-twisted; it’s almost completely unspun roving in places, fragile cobweb in others. It’s mine, made with my own hands, with fiber and help from people I now consider friends.

The yarn feels like home.