I recently picked up a new hobby. I'd been considering getting into handspinning for some time, but I assumed that the only way to go about it was to spin on a spinning wheel. Those are large and expensive, and I knew just from the prices I'd seen that buying wool for spinning isn't cheap either. It seems like it would be, but the sources are typically yarn specialty shops and so forth. I guess when your yarn history is made up of mostly buying Red Heart Super Saver, the idea of paying 4 or 5 bucks an ounce for wool kind of kicks you in the gut. And as for the spinning wheel, I didn't want to go out and buy some expensive behemoth and then find that I didn't like spinning. All in all, my ruminations (see what I did there? sheep and alpaca are ruminants...I just made a livestock joke!) had led me to conclude that handspinning would just have to be one of my many "someday" crafts.
When my extremely sweet sister-in-law gave me a 25 dollar gift certificate for Etsy for Christmas, I didn't make the connection right away. The possibilities were endless, and I spent several starry-eyed hours browsing the wonders and delights of people's crafty, creative products. And then I saw it. A handspinning kit, complete with a drop spindle, wool, and beginner's instructions. I did a little internet research, watched some youtube videos, checked out three library books, and decided that now was the time to learn to spin. Imagine, if you will, my despair when I realized that the Etsy shop I was planning on purchasing this kit from did not accept gift certificates. It didn't take me long, however, to realize that if there was one shop selling handspinning materials, there would be others. Soon I had shopped out a lovely little spindle and 4 ounces of blue wool.
Beginning to spin was harder than I'd thought it would be. Of course, I expected it to be difficult, but I have dexterous fingers and I thought my years of knitting and crochet would have some effect on my success at spinning. The first session was semi-disastrous. I couldn't for the life of me get the wool to draft properly (drafting means pulling a small amount of wool out of the larger piece of roving).The result was knobbly, twisted too tightly, and all around just pitiful. Before starting my second session, I watched a couple of videos I hadn't seen yet, and they gave me the idea to separate the larger roving (the "rope" of wool) into several thinner pieces so that I have less drafting to do. That worked like a charm, and my second, third, and fourth sessions were much better. Much less breaking of the yarn, fewer times dropping the spindle, much less frustration. That was when my dexterous fingers kicked in. My yarn isn't perfect...the diameter of the thread tends to vary more than I'd like, but I suppose that will change with time.
Anyway, this post may be fantastically boring, but I just wanted to share my newfound hobby.
