Thursday, August 9, 2007

Post-dated....

Time to come out of the water...
I initially wrote this post in early June. Before I learned to spin on the drop-spindle. I thought it would be amusing to post it now.....

"SOMEBODY HELP ME...."

Well. I am in trouble. Real fiber trouble. I had joined the hello yarn fiber club in April, got my first fiber in May, and have recieved another in June. Besides that, at the same time I signed up, I also bought my first drop-spindle and some fiber to try my hand at spinning. Of course, I have never spun before except as a demo for 15 short seconds about 20 years ago. Never mind that I don't even know what to do with it, I am recieving new shipments of wool roving every month!!! Have I gone mad?!

I guess this is the way to force myself to try it! There is a great local resource for all handicrafts, and I know they have classes in spinning and weaving, so I'll have to bite the bullet and really try. But meanwhile, I found this on-line, and methinks I will be making great use of these instructional videos!

Learning to spin has been one of my dreams for as many years as I have been a crafter. It's a long-running joke in my family that my spouse was making me a spinning wheel for a Christmas gift 20+ years ago--of course, he wasn't, but everytime he wants me to guess about a gift, my first guess is always a spinning wheel. ;)



That's kind of funny, in retrospect. Now I can spin after going to the fiber fair and being taught this summer. But a taste of spinning is all I've gotten, and I was hooked on it before I even tried it!!! So you know this is the beginning of a great love!

This site is a spinner making innovations I know nothing about yet! And this one is doing the same kind of inventing... I really want to learn more about spinning!

I have to learn to ply next....seems like it would be fairly easy, letting the twist that is already in the singles do the work for you. Unfortunately, this is really on the back burner until I can devote some time to it. Board exam, you know ;)

I have to make a version of Herrschner's Winter Forest, seen below. I love double knitting, and was making a cheezy snowflake in double knit about 15 years ago, as my first taste of it. I think this would be the most cozy afghan on the planet; a double layer of stockinette!!!!! Wow. And I like the colors they chose for the pic:

Drool. Really need to make this, I must find some kind of cheap wool that I wouldn't mind buying twice as much of, because it will take twice as much as a normal afghan. At Herrschner's website, I think I found the book this is published in....

3 comments:

Opal said...

You might also like to check out this Yahoo group for more information on spindling. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spindlers/

It's a really great resource!

Aim said...

Thanks for the link Opal, I'll do that!

Donna B said...

I have no idea how to double knit...looks like such a cozy project and I love colorwork.

Ah, but the spinning...it can easily reach obsession levels, I warn you...hope you have fun with it! :-)