Vacation and The Beginning

It all started in my aunt’s living room. My family and I were on vacation, and we were coming up with different ideas for cottage industries that I might be able to do. My dad thought of weaving, since I liked yarn, and in the process of researching looms and whatnot, my wonderful aunt brought out a copy of SpinOff magazine. I was hooked.

I stood on the threshold of a new world and drooled. Colors and fibers danced around me in everything from a slow tango to a highland fling. And then we went home. And for a while I forgot the possibilities and filled my time with other things. Then one day, out of curiosity, I looked online to see how much a drop spindle cost. My mistake. I spent hours online looking at different spinning sites, beginner kits, fibers, spindles, everything! Soon I had made my selection. I was all set to buy a Schacht high-low spindle and eight ounces of fiber, then I started talking about it with my dad. Next thing I knew I was off to Hobby Lobby to buy a wooden dowel rod and some wooden wheels.

The only problem? I had no fiber to spin. I had ordered eight ounces of carded Corridale sliver and another eight ounces of heathered Corridale top (Agate Beach) from Pacific Wool and Fiber, but I had no idea how long that would take to get to me. Praise the Lord, while we were at Hobby Lobby I looked for a pair of double-pointed knitting needles for my sister. I couldn’t find any the right size, so I peeked around the corner to see if there were more in the next aisle and, hey presto! a bag labeled “Wool Roving” caught my eye. Several bags. In all sorts of colors. Turned out they were marketed for felters, but they were wool, and they were roving, and they were pretty. I bought the four-ounce package for $8 and brought it home.

While my dad made my spindle I pawed through the fiber. Six colors in autumnal shades. Red, golden yellow, deep blue, brown, light purple, and leaf green. Which to start with? Well, I liked the purple least so it was deemed fit for the sacrifice. Dad handed me the finished spindle, and I promptly started spinning.

Thanks to some online tutorials I had a basic concept of drafting, yarn thickness, and how to keep the spindle spinning. I figured that a thicker yarn would be easier to start with, but I wanted to try out a top whorl first, so I tried to spin a thick yarn on the top whorl. I found out very quickly that doesn’t work so well. I inverted the spindle and things moved along much more smoothly.

Here are the first . . . um . . . novelty yarns I made. The purple and brown were not even close to being candidates for first-time plying, so they were stuffed away in my closet. Next I spun the yellow and the blue and turned them into a sort of worsted weight two-ply. That was rather interesting because my lazy kate consisted of an upside-down shoebox with pens stuck through it to hold up the old thread spools of yarn.

Anyway, I spent two days on those three skeins. (That’s something I’ve wondered about. Does “skein” refer to a specific amount of yarn, or just the way the yarn is configured?) Then I moved on to the red and green. I had big plans for this yarn! I pulled the rovings apart and drafted them very carefully so I would get a striped effect. This was before I knew how much the colors can slide. I was envisioning perfect red and green stripes in random lengths. I spun the singles on top whorl and eagerly plyed them together. But wait! What happened to my lovely stripes? The first red stripe had a green single in it, and it went downhill from there.

It still made a rather nice yarn, but it wasn’t what I had planned. After I set the twist (in hot water) I crocheted it into a little potholder—mainly so I could try out a new crochet stitch that I liked—and here it is.

I was out of roving, and out of breath, but very happy. And then a package from Pacific Wool and Fiber arrived.