Well, I missed June’s post. Oops. In my defense, I was really really busy. We, the majority of my family, decided to take a trip to my grandparent’s. It was sort of last second. We left the day before I should have posted. In all the hullaballoo, I completely forget to write something it. It would have been basically the same as May. Right after our trip, the family got some bad news. I’m not allowed to talk about it. But it’s just been one bad thing after another.
When I first learned to knit, it was because I needed to move. It was peaceful but still active. Crochet and Tatting are the same. I can sit and still move. I have to focus on what I’m doing, so my brain is engaged in patterns and pictures. With all the bad, I couldn’t focus on any of that. I’d just end up staring into space.
The anxiety ratcheted up several notches. The question is: How do I shut my brain off? The answer is easy: Spinning! I’ve been doing almost nothing but spinning for the last six weeks. I’ve been taking my wheel everywhere with me. And by everywhere, I mean my best friend’s parent’s house. Other than home, that’s the only place I’ve spun.
I tried teaching myself to spin six or seven years ago on a drop spindle with limited success. I had yarn. It looked absolutely terrible, and I couldn’t get it off the spindle, but there ya have it. I dropped it for a year or two. Right after the baby was born, I tried learning again. I did a little better, but with similar problems. So, I let it go. Until two years ago. Mom and I signed up for The Woolery’s Beginning Spinning class. That’s it. I was hooked. The wheel mesmerized me!!!
I finally bought me a spinning wheel in February of this year. I spun everything I could get my hands on. It still wasn’t pretty, but it was so much better than before. I think I spun about 3 pounds of fiber in the first six weeks. My hands hated me. My spinning is a little better now. I’m still playing around with it.
I had two bags of fiber, both from Paradise Fiber’s Fiber Club of the Month boxes. Aren’t they gorgeous?! Bloom came from June’s box. Ponyo came from July’s box. I didn’t do anything special when spinning this. The goal was to just shut everything down, and spinning has been meditative in a way that the other crafts have not.
I took just a hunk of top and split into multiple sections. I just spun straight from that without blending in any particular way. There was no thinking about it. I just had to sit and spin the yarn. One the one bobbin of Bloom, I spun it into a center pull ball and plyed from that. It broke on me, so I ended with two small skeins and a ball that still needs to be plyed. The two small skeins are about 60ish yards. I’m going to do the same with the other three bobbins. I only have one clean bobbin, so something needs to be done.
I can’t stop petting my yarn. It’s not the most even or consistent yarn, but it’s all mine. Also, after months of no productivity, I have finally finished something. Well, sort of.
Creating Peace 