Last year when I visited Webs in Northampton (a yarn store with a 21,000 square foot warehouse out back) I found that they had a little section dedicated to spinning. I had been interested in learning how to spin for a few years so I picked myself up a Louet top-whorl drop spindle and some wool roving at 99 cents per ounce. I left very happy. My first yarn was extremely clumsy and lumpy. As was my second and third. This past summer I ordered another 8 ounces of wool and it got a little better. A month ago I suddenly decided that I needed alpaca wool so I hopped in the car and did an after school trip to the warehouse. The result of this spinning effort was a yarn which vaguely resembles a misshapen worsted weight/chunky variety. This will become a hat. I also picked up a very small bag of local wool from the farmer's market and spun it into a worsted weight yarn in about two hours.
That is the point when I got spin crazy. I had no wool left. On top of that, my awesome friend gave me a brand new Turkish spindle, so now I have two lonely spinning tools with nothing to spin. Sure, I could work on my other projects, but nothing is as satisfying as seeing a fluffy lump of fuzz run between your fingers and turn into a thin strand of yarn. I love stretching out the lumps and feeling the fibers run past each other until the piece is smooth. I love feeling the weight of the spindle and the thrum as it spins. I feel all out of sorts. And besides, the blanket I'm working on is getting fairly large and unwieldy. I would much rather deal with a spindle than about 6 pounds of blanket.
I do have a sort of project to keep the spinning part of my mind active this winter break. In the basement there is a spinning wheel which has belonged to our family for years. The crankshaft is disconnected from the treadle and it's so gummed up with dust it looks gray instead of brown. I don't even know what kind of wheel it is, it's that old. Well, that and I need to seriously educate myself on spinning wheel parts. So that is what I shall do. If possible, I want to fix it up a bit and get it working so that I can learn to use it. Then all that's left is to raise some sheep/alpacas/angora rabbits and then shear the wool, wash it, card it, and then I can start spinning. I think I have more work to do...
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By the way, did you know that there are some crazy spinning fibers out there? There is the usual sheep's wool, alpaca, angora and whatnot. There non-hair fibers like silk and flax. But then you can also get camel, yak, and bison wool (bison runs for about $40 per ounce. Yak is a little cheaper at $20-$30). And then things get really crazy. You can buy milk protein (casein) fiber which I shouldn't get because that's precisely what my boyfriend is allergic to, as well as a blend of 70% merino (sheep) wool, 15% cashmere, and 15% New Zealand common brushtail possum. Yes sir, I can spin myself some possum yarn. Challenge accepted!
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