No, not that kind of spinning. I'm not energetic enough to sit on an exercise bike, pedaling to a video. Give me a real bike and a real hill any any day!
I wanted to do a post on how my spinning class at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts went. I know some of you were interested. Forgive me if my posts are somewhat random, in terms of being one thing, then another the next day. I just keep going through my photos and noticing how much catching up I have to do!
Here I am on the first night of class. Can you say, "Giddy?!" I have wanted to learn to spin for SOOOOO long! I thought it was a great deal. We got four nights of instruction (one night a week for four weeks), and we got to take home a spinning wheel for the month to use and practice with. Awesome.
Much to my surprise, there was a bag for each of us when we showed up the first night. This is a large shopping bag with handles, and it's full of unspun yarn. Ours for taking the class! (Incidentally, the cost of my class was $75. Don't you think that's a great deal for all of this?! I sure did!)
Here is Holly, holding one of the "batts" (I don't know what you call them) of unspun yarn that was in the bag. There were three of these in there, plus some smaller ones as well.
Here was my wheel....and the view from my vantage point. Our teacher's name was Susan. I really liked her. She has a Master's degree in English and was very funny. I enjoyed her stories. She sort of had a "free-associating" way of teaching...but it all came together at some point in the class! LOL.
Here is what I had spun by the end of the class on the first night. I was really proud of myself. I think I did okay on this! I filled two bobbins full of my yarn. It's not perfect....some areas are thicker than others. But it's all mine! Susan joked with us that the more "mistakes" we made, the more valuable our yarn was. Some people really like "handspun" yarn, and you know it's "handspun" if it's not perfect. So, every time I noticed an area that I made too thick or too thin, I just went, "Kah-ching!" LOL! The second night, we learned how to ply it. I haven't taken a photo yet, but after that, we wound it into a hank. I think I'd really like to try hand dyeing it next!
Here was some already-dyed roving that was in our bags. This was fun to spin, to play with the colors. But the quality of the roving was very different than the white. It was very difficult to draft (pull out of the "batt" and prepare for the wheel). From that perspective, I didn't like working with it. I haven't spun it all. I'd like to finish it sometime.
Here is what I did spin of it and how it ended up looking after spinning. Pretty cool, I think!
This stuff here was a dream to spin. I think it was Bluefaced Leicester. It just came off the batt like butter. I could have spun this stuff all day. As a matter of fact, I did spin it for hours at one sitting. I haven't spun all of this yet, either. But I will definitely finish it. I thought I had a photo of it spun, but I guess not. I'll have to show you some other time.
Here's a funny story....
Our teacher was telling us that one time she was demonstrating spinning at some event. Someone stopped and talked to her, saying that he/she figured it must take an immense amount of concentration to spin. Susan corrected them and said something like this, "Not really. It's very relaxing. If you were to hook a spinner up to an EEG, you'd basically see a flat line." (This is what I mean about her sense of humor. I loved it.)
Well, as I was spinning this last, wonderful wool, I found it so relaxing. I was spinning and spinning. I felt something on the outside of my mouth and chin. I put my hand up there and realized I was drooling!!! Did you hear me??? DROOLING! OMG. I just started laughing. I remembered Susan's comment and thought, "Yep. Totally flatlining!!!"
So, the long and short of it is that I really enjoyed spinning. Now, I really, really want a wheel. The Michigan Fiber Festival is coming up. I know they have them there, and I'm going to look for one. I did some consulting in July, and I'm going to siphon off a bit of that money to go get one. (I may have mentioned it before, but when I do some consulting, I siphon off a bit to buy myself something special and save the rest. That way, I feel like there was something "in it" for me to do the consulting, and I don't just piss away the extra money I earn.)
'Cause y'all know I don't have enough to do and need another hobby!!!
This Friday, I'm making a day trip to Chicago for Stitches Midwest with my friend, Jane. CAN. NOT. WAIT. We're taking a bus, chartered by Your Local Yarn Shop. So nice! Don't have to drive, park, etc. I am really looking forward to it. I hear it's pretty overwhelming. It will be like Market for fabric, I bet!
Until next time,
