This past Saturday, my mom and I went to the spinning guild meeting. I have to confess, after all of the excitement of learning how to spin, discovering that the spinning guild meets in my town and being given a wheel of my own, spinning kind of fell off the map in terms of my hobbies.
I think I may have figured out why – well, aside from the fact that in the intervening years I’ve had a small person take up a lot of my time. I wasn’t spinning the right kind of stuff. Everyone says to start with Blue Face Leicester, because it has such a long staple length and it’s really easy to spin. I bought some (OK, a lot) and didn’t like spinning it.
On the other hand, I seem to have no problem with shorter staple lengths – like this absolutely scrumptious shetland/alpaca blend I bought at the guild meeting. Those four ounces you see on that bobbin there? I had spun it all between Saturday afternoon and Monday evening. I’d estimate there are maybe three hours of spinning on that bobbin, and it’s (relatively) even.
I just wrote a check to drop in the mail to the seller so she could send me the second four ounce ball of this roving she had in her basket. I’m planning to ply them and knit something for Carrie – maybe a new hat and scarf for winter? Eight ounces of worsted-ish ought to be plenty for those and maybe an extra hat or two to donate, right?