Turn, Turn, Turn

Last weekend I took two days of spinning lessons. Wheee! No. I wasn't on a bicycle. I was using a spinning wheel to turn fiber into yarn.

I love fiber. No big surprise there. For many years I enjoyed counted cross-stitch. All those colors of thread. And I've been a hooker . . . er, . . . um, . . . RUG hooker for at least fifteen years now. In recent years, hand-dyed wool has become all the rage. Spot-dyed wool, with lots of swirls of color, is my favorite! Really...isn't this gorgeous? And now...I knit. Just about every day. I like to have several projects going at once, so it's good that I have a couple of fiber arts that I love.

Some years back I took a couple of spinning classes and purchased a wheel. My teacher had several angora bunnies and it was amazing to watch her spin the fur right off a bunny she held on her lap like this. No, I didn't get a bunny of my own; I knew better.

Alas, the wheel gathered dust and eventually I gave it to our daughter, Bethany. She had taken up knitting (self-taught -- amazing!) and welcomed the chance to spin some of her own yarn. That wheel now lives in Vancouver, B.C. (I have visitation rights!)

Earlier this past fall, I asked my sister, Lee, if she'd like to sell the spinning wheel she had. She did! So for several months I had a beautiful piece of Americana on the landing at the top of the stairs. The wheel smirked and whispered at me each time I passed by it....Psst! Remember me? Are you gonna DO something with me??

I signed up for a two-day "Intensive Beginning Spinning" class at Halcyon Yarn! After the December session was snowed out, it was rescheduled for February. What a treat! The teacher, Rudy Amman, a retired HS math teacher and assistant principal, was a delight. Luckily, he came fully-equipped with the patience of Job. There were six of us in the class -- all women -- and Rudy guided us through two days of fiber play.


We started with spindle spinning to get used to the fiber and what we could (or could not) get it to do. Eventually, we got to the wheels and we learned to spin "singles." A singles (isn't that weird, that in its singular form it ends with an s?) is yarn that is just one strand. Soon, we learned to ply, or twist, two singles together to make two-ply yarn. It was such fun and for the most part, very, very relaxing. Here is some of what I spun . . .


I purchased a bit of fiber to bring home and practice with. I hope I'll be able to find a bit of time to spin each day.


And for those of you who are enjoying the emerging "green" grass among puddles of melted snow, here's
what we're still dealing with . . .

and we're expecting more tomorrow. Ugh. Enough already!