Last weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting several of my Ravelry friends in the Raleigh area when we all got together for a spinning workshop. I became interested in learning to spin after reading about several other Ravelers' experiences learning the craft. I kept seeing beautiful examples of gorgeous handspun yarn cropping up all over Ravelry and various people's websites and I would just drool straight onto my keyboard. Handspun yarn, for those of you who aren't well versed in the world of fiber, is absolutely unique - there are no two identical skeins, and that's what appeals to me about it. Working from the same base fiber, two spinners will not be able to create identical skeins - it's all about your touch on the wheel.
You start with roving, which is fiber that's been prepared and combed and such, but not yet spun into yarn - that's your task. You can start with natural or dyed fibers. This is roving from Funky Carolina (borrowing photos from Jeanette):
My friend Jeanette spun this up into an amazing skein:
So you sort of see the process. There are a million examples of handspun yarn on the internet, and I just had to learn. And after some Ravelry chats, I found that there were several other ladies who wanted to learn within just a few hours of me. My friend Marianne was able to find a woman in the Raleigh area, Judy Tysmans, who teaches spinning classes, so we booked a weekend and started amassing fiber in anticipation of our two-day workshop. Marianne actually bought a spinning wheel before we went for the weekend, because she just couldn't stand waiting any longer! So she already kinda knew the ropes when we went for our lessons. Two other Ravelers, Maria and Catrina, came as well. Catrina and I were complete newbies, and Maria was basically a pro!
Judy's farm was so adorable and cozy. She has 9 sheep, and she takes their fleeces and prepares them and has them processed and the combs them and readies them, often dyes them, and spins them up. She's got a bunch of spinning wheels and we were able to try a lot of things before the weekend was up.
It was really neat to learn about the preparation that goes into every single skein of yarn we use to knit or crochet, and I discovered that I'm not entirely sure I'd like dealing with fleeces and washing them and picking out hay and combing and carding them. Nope. I like my fiber all fluffed and ready to go. But I am interested in spinning it!
This is me trying my hand at drop-spindling. I sucked at it...but so did almost everyone else. It's hard! I'm really not sure I'll ever do that again - I'd much rather work on the wheel, thank you very much. These are not my most flattering photos, but hey - I was concentrating!
Here's Catrina at the wheel. She really hung in there and if she was frustrated, she didn't show it (which cannot be said for me - I definitely got frustrated, especially by day 2!)
And here's the four of us - Catrina, Maria, Marianne, and me - with our first skeins of hand-spun yarn. They're tiny, and they're not that pretty, but we made them ourselves and theoretically, one could knit them if one chose to do so. So that's success, in my book.
And this is the spinning wheel I ordered for myself when I got home from this intense workshop - an Ashford Traveller double-drive wheel. Lord have mercy on my soul.
As if I have time for more hobbies! I am hoping with practice, I can get the hang of this. Thank you, Marianne, for letting me lift your photos.
