The Year of Spinning Dangerously
Tomorrow is my Tour de Fleece Challenge day; the day I’m going to attempt the mile.
Why tomorrow?
Because tomorrow is the anniversary - the first anniversary - of my aspinneration. (Not the date of my confession. The date on which I actually took spindle and fiber in hand, began to understand twist, and felt myself start the slide down the slippery slippery slope.)
What better way to acknowledge my doom celebrate than to spin a mile?
A former friend of mine used to say to me, “It’s a good thing you don’t have an I-Told-You-So bone in your body.” She was right, too - was right then and she’d be right now. Because if I did have such a bone I would be telling you all about how completely right I was, during my conscientious-objector days, to fear the impact of spinning on my life.
Oh yes, in case there was any doubt - I am admitting I have a problem.
I admit I am powerless over fiber (and fiber tools).
I don’t know whether I’m ready to do anything about the problem. I’m not at all sure I ever want to. In any case, even if I did I would get totally stuck at Step Four. I just am not ready to make that Searching and Fearless Moral Inventory.
For instance, I’m not willing to tell you how many spindles I own. Heck, I’m not willing to tell ME how many spindles I own. When people ask me I answer with perfect truth that I stopped counting at 30 because the numbers were getting too scary. (See? Searching, maybe. Fearless - nope.) I can tell you this much, though. After the last spinning guild meeting (oh yeah, did I mention I joined the local guild? where I occasionally act as mentor? and where I am going to be teaching a mini-workshop thingie in spinning from the lock?), where we were all supposed to bring in spindles for other people to try out, said spindles to be bagged and labeled individually… I came home and unpacked said bagged and labeled spindles, and I counted the tags: 32. That is NOT including the ones I was currently using, or the ones I decided not to bring with me, or the ones I brought to show but did not make available for use.
I’m not willing to tell you too much about the scope of my fiber stash. You’ve already seen some of the bins in what used to be my guest room. You haven’t seen the fleeces in the attic, nor have you heard how many of them there are - nor are you going to. (Again - Not Fearless. Nu-uh.)
I’m not willing to go into detail about all the associated fiber tools. You already know too much there. You know about the drum carder. You know about the combs. You know about the bobbin winder and the… no, sorry, stopping there.
I’m not willing to… OK, then, I am willing to tell you about the wheels. Yes. I will be brave and face the wheel music and I’ll tell you. In time perhaps I’ll even show you.
I have four working wheels - five, actually, if you count the charkha, which I do - and I use them all. None of them is new - in fact, most of them are technically antiques. I have one derelict wheel that I hope someday to restore to working order. I also have what’s left of an ill-assorted assemblage of parts that was some Genuwine Anteek Store owner’s idea of a spinning wheel - rescued via Craigslist from a nice old local couple who received it as a wedding present 50 years ago because they were known to be “into colonial.” (Sigh.) It consisted of the table from a small Paradis saxony, a decent unidentified drive wheel with no crank, and an outsized flyer and bobbin that miraculously fit the 30″ Quebec-style Canadian Production Wheel I bought a few weeks later.
Since which, to add to my iniquities, I have become a matchmaker pimp cult-leading evangelist for the Canadian Production Wheel.
I’ve started to write about spinning.
I am going to SOAR this year, even though it’s clear across the country and I can’t afford it. (But it’s AFTER RHINEBECK! FOR ONCE!) Among the primary attractions - aside from the overall experience and the concentrated quality time with my fellow fanatics - the opportunity to study the teaching of spinning at the feet of Maggie Casey. Because it isn’t enough that I myself am a total hook-line-sinker-ass-and-teakettle goner - no, no, I proselytize, I evangelize, I wheedle, I enable. No one is safe around me, do you hear me? NO ONE.
And now… here I am up to my eyeballs in Tour de Fleece, and tomorrow I intend to make an official and certifiable spinster of myself by spinning the statutory mile.
Out of this.
That’s 181g of BL/Silk - the heathered grey Border Leicester I showed you yesterday, blended 2:1 with tussah top. Most of it was blended last week, but a few days ago I looked again at the grist of my sample skein and realized I needed another 45g to make up the full mile; hence the washing and blending.
This is the benchmark skein:
(The BL/silk is the one on top - the other is polwarth/angora, about which more hereafter.) It’s a soft squishy 2-ply, about 24 WPI.
I don’t have any particular plans for it; for now I just know that it’s a yarn I’ll be happy to have more of in my stash (if all goes according to plan, well over 1,000 yards of 2-ply including the existing skein) - and under the heading of “you’ve come a long way, baby” the idea of spinning my mile out of my own hand-prepped and hand-blended fiber has a particular appeal for me. I know from the first skein that it will long-draw like nobody’s business - I think I clocked myself at something like 4 seconds/yard, a pace I’ll want to match and maintain to get through the mile in reasonable time.
A mile of singles. Indeed, if I have the stamina, half a mile of plied yarn, before this time tomorrow.
Could I do a mile of plied yarn in a day? Would I try? Ask me tomorrow night, after I come home from this challenge either with my shield or on it. The Tour won’t be over then, not by a long shot - nor will I be running short of fiber. Stranger things have happened. Strange things have been happening all year, and I don’t expect them to stop now.
But one thing I ask. Just one.
Please, please, PLEASE… do NOT teach me to weave.
July 10th, 2009 at 2:03 am
Ha! And I thought *I* was bad! (Nine wheels but only six spindles. What can I say? I love wheels!)
However…my fleeces aren’t in the attic, oh, no. They’re on the sheep…which is mine….so I don’t know how that balances out.
As for yesterday…FIFTY-WHAT? in an inch?? Good gods. (Pick some.)
I’m rooting for your mile and some, lady–and while you’re at it, find me a CPW I can afford!
July 10th, 2009 at 4:23 am
I thought I was clever - I tried to keep my spinning out of the public eye - but I second guessed myself (alternate personality disorder?) and purchased the small Ashford E-spinner. With big bobbins. It´s SO portable, and fits into a small bag on the back of my bicycle, and with an extension cord along, I can spin anywhere. I now bring my Espinner instead of knitting. What would really pull me over the edge would be a small, portable solar-panel….
I always compare tools used for knitting and fiberwork with the tools men have in their tool-shops. I have seen at least 35 screwdrivers in spouses shed….and thats just for screws! So, stand tall and flaunt your spindles!
Love your blog and your designs, am knitting Vintage Socks.
Heidi, Denmark
July 10th, 2009 at 7:26 am
Weaving? I distinctly heard someone say they wanted to learn to weave, from all the way across the Internet. Band weaving, definitely: minimal equipment, maximal complexity. Probably tablet - you’d love it. Or those lovely Baltic pick-up bands.
July 10th, 2009 at 9:33 am
::chuckles::
Ooh, the BL will be the mile, I feel so special! And BOY is that yarn pretty!
Don’t learn to weave. If you do I might have to spin all my own weaving yarn, which could be… slow.
July 10th, 2009 at 9:38 am
Congratulations! Happy aspinneration day!
I bought a loom once. It sat in the basement for about a year, and then I sold it. I think I will still learn to weave, but on a fold-up baby loom. The problem with weaving is all that threading. I have to do it on a loom that will fit in front of the TV.
July 10th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Hi, delurking to say congratulations. I’ve been reading your blog for quite a while, but have been too shy to comment. But… I have to tell you, it was reading about your aspineration last year (along with seeing all the beautiful tour de fleece yarns popping up on blogs all over the internet at the same time) that made me want to learn to spin. Learn I did, last fall, and yesterday I aspinerated my own first convert!
Thanks so much for sharing your experience; learning to spin has brought great fun into my life!
July 10th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
But if you learn to weave, you can keep pace with the spinning better than knitting does, because weaving goes so much faster and uses up yarn WAY faster! So it’s really for your own good.
Good luck on doing the mile, and don’t forget to stay hydrated
July 10th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
You and me, baby! Resisting the loom with all our might.
The hardest part is when the Yarn Barn of Kansas catalog comes. I get the “weavers” one because it has all the spinny stuff, but I have to flick through pages and pages and pages of pretty woven things before getting to the three pages of spinny stuff, and sometimes I feel my resolve weakening.
July 10th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Ok, I won’t tell you about the kiddie Rigid Heddle loom that I just ordered last night. If the bug really bites,, there’s a Kromski Harp in my future!
But again, I won’t tell you about this.
July 10th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
I had no intention to learn weaving, but then I didn’t intend to learn to spin either. Thennnnn, I spun some Wensleydale that was a little rough for “next to skin” and I thought wouldn’t drape well enough for a shawl. A friend set up her table loom for me and five yards of table runner (I guess now I have to learn carpentry to buld a loooong table) later, I was hooked.
And then you aided me into a CPW, so now I have to weave to use all the yarn I plan to spin.
July 10th, 2009 at 7:40 pm
I am pretty sure you can do it. 1. you admit to your problem, 2. you’re in wicked good shape, 3. Whazzit, um 4.75 times your normal output at any given time - you scoff at such trifling. 4. While there’s not that bone in your body, you tend toward a marked, let’s kindly call it focus. Will? that will serve you well.
I’m pretty sure you can do this. Just keep your knees over your ankles…
\I’m raising a pennant in your honor…
July 10th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
All I can say is, I know you and I know Maeve DeHetre, and my life is complete!
July 10th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
I’m sure you’ll handle this as well as you do everything else you undertake. ::is jealous::
July 11th, 2009 at 12:02 am
Don’t hurt yourself.
I don’t spin. I have no intention of learning to spin. That said, a local antique shop has something in stock that looks like it might be spinning-related. Should I buy it, knowing that I will inevitably learn to spin, just as I learned to knit socks, after swearing for a year that I didn’t understand the attraction? (I started a year ago, and am currently working on about my 40th pair.)
July 11th, 2009 at 5:24 am
You have to watch that weaving. I began to notice that some of the yarn i am spinning didn’t want to be knit. I started spinning because I am a knitter. It really wasn’t my fault—some core-spun rainbow yarn wanted to be woven and made me order a loom. It refused to be knitted an any gauge. In the last 7 months i have gone from an uncountable (because I can’t face it and don’t keep them in one place) number of spindles to a Suzie Pro Wheel, a Duncan drumcarder and a relatively small (for now) 12 inch Ashford knitters loom (easier to buy with “knitters” in the title). On yes, and I decided i wouldn’t be able to figure out which cards I liked unless i tried them all—-i tell myself after I try them all out on various fibers I will swap or sell some of them—-but they are all different in fineness, brand, shape and handle and I have not figured out which to give up. All but two pair were bought used–many at a good price, but I actually have lost count of the number of handcards I have. I don’t like combed fiber as much and so have only 2 sets of combs and a hackle. Not only have you slipped down this path but it has only encouraged others of us to follow.
July 12th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
“Please, please, PLEASE… do NOT teach me to weave.”
That is my prayer, also. Daily.
July 13th, 2009 at 8:42 am
I don’t know about you, but I hear it as “Please Brer Fox, please don’t toss me into that briar patch!” Only I begin to worry when would you have time to work on your knitting patterns if ye did… Otherwise, I’d send you a warped inkle myself.
July 15th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
I refuse to learn to weave.
I flung a spindle and some fiber to yet another victim last week… see what you got ME into…
You were, of course, my first victim.
July 20th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
I received a beautiful Canadian production spinning wheel. I can’t seem to get it to work. I think the bobbin might be missing a part. Should their be a place, on the right end of the bobbin for the band? Mine doesn’t have it. Everything spins, but the bobbin won’t take up the yarn. I’m new to spinning, but I think it needs a band to slow down the bobbin. Please help. I can find very little information on this spinning wheel.
Thank you,
Jane