As The Whorl Turns*

I am a spinner. I've never written about this before because I do it so poorly. When I first started to teach myself to spin I bought an Ashford traditional spindle and went on my merry way. Oy. I sucked. Then I went online and watched a lot of spinning videos and read a lot about spinning. Then I practiced some more. I still sucked, but it got a little better. I figured out that I really needed to prepare my fibers before I attempted to spin them. I have tried several different things, but basically, what I've learned is that I really need to tease my fibers out and break them up in order to spin at all well. I still don't spin well, but I am starting to slowly spin more evenly and with much fewer slubs. Small victories.

Anyway, the reason that I'm writing about this now is twofold. First, I've decided that it's silly to give up on the spinning, so I'm going to practice a little every day. Second, I bought myself a new spindle this week. It's a top whorl spindle. I don't know the manufacturer. I bought it from Holy Threads here in Spookaloo and so far I'm enjoying spinning with it. Soon I will have spun up all the fiber that I bought from my LYS. I will have to break out the good stuff. In other words, I will have to find and then spin the fiber that I bought at Barter Faire last year. Should be fun. I will let you know how it goes.

*I suspect that every handspinner with a blog has used this title for an entry at some point. And yet. I couldn't help myself.