knitting in the dark

I had said for years that I wasn’t interested in learning to spin. I enjoy too many crafts already - knitting, needlepoint, quilting and other sewing, I take photographs, draw and paint, and the list goes on. And once I start spinning, where does it end? I viewed it as a kind of gateway craft to dyeing yarn and fiber, weaving, or thinking that buying raw fleece and doing all the processing myself might be a good idea - but so far, none of those fears have come to pass. Last Christmas (2008), my fiber-loving aunt bought me an Ashford Turkish Spindle and two ounces of alpaca from Vashon Alpaca Fibers.

Apparently this fiber came from an animal named Clemente.

I jumped right in to learning to spin, surfed the internet for instructions, bought some wool top from Weaving Works, and made some yarn!

Not too bad for my first try, right? I discovered I loved making yarn but wasn’t sure if I loved the speed and motions of spindle spinning. I didn’t immediately abandon spinning completely, but I only poked at it for the following seven months… until I met Nancy in July.

(to be continued…)

This entry was posted on Friday, January 15th, 2010 at 11:50 pm and is filed under other crafts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.