Category — Spinning

some of my first Navajo plying

When I first decided to learn spinning, it was a hard and heavy obsession. I bought a drop spindle learn-to-spin kit and quickly realized that it wasn’t going to suffice. A few weeks later I had a brand new spinning wheel and four pounds of falkland and merino roving. I taught myself the basics using a great book: Teach Yourself Visually Handspinning by Judith MacKenzie McCuin. I made bulky singles, sock weight two-ply and lots of heavy worsted/light bulky. Later, I even learned to navajo ply (my current favorite method).

Sometimes you learn a craft and it’s fun, but not something you’re going to do much. Other times you learn a craft and you feel like you could spend the rest of your life doing it. Spinning is like that for me. I absolutely love the process of spinning and having a finished product that I get to turn into yet another beautiful and useful object at the end.

When I first started spinning, I was satisfied with simply creating a mostly consistent, balanced yarn. But now that I have learned how to do that, I want to have more command of my yarn. I want to make it come alive bright in barber-pole  twists like I’ve seen others do. And the problem is, I just haven’t been able to find the magic trick for doing so.

Since spinning classes are out of the question unless I want to drive over an hour, I’ve been researching spinning books that may give me the more specific information I need to make the yarn of my dreams. It looks like The Intentional Spinner again by Judith MacKenzie McCuin is the book I’m looking for. Unfortunately, it’s not available yet. In the mean time, I’ll be lurking in the spinning groups on Ravelry.