Sounds like a Meredith Baxter-Birney movie of the week, no?
Actually, I'm a bit late in recounting my adventures in handspinning.
In late December, I took a great day to myself, hit the Boxing Day sales in the city, and went to a handspinning class at my not-local-but-closest-to-local, The Loop. I have always been curious about spinning, so this introduction was perfect for me.
We were a small-but-mighty group of five, right down to the tourist who wandered in and overheard someone mention the class, then casually got the information and stayed for the afternoon. I loves me some spontaneous fiber obsession.
It was at once fun, frustrating, fiddly and rewarding. Two and a half hours yielded seven yards of 2-ply yarn ranging in thickness from sportweight to holy-crap-that's-thick. Seven yards.
Our instructor, Suzy Belt, is from Tatamagouche and runs Sunrise Mercantile. Suzy does a lot of workshops by appointment, so I may plan a day to go and learn about her wheels.
As I am still thoroughly satisfied with commercial yarns (huge understatement, given the size of my stash these days), spinning may not amount to more than a party trick, but it was really fun to learn a bit about fibers and how they become yarn.
To my fellow Loop spinsters, if you have remembered to check out my blog, do leave a comment so we can share our spinning progress by e-mail.
PS - Since you asked (or rather, since I'll tell anyone who'll listen), I got a great chocolate brown wool coat and a pair of tall black boots at the sales. Aerosoles, people! Size eleven! Seventy dollars! (So many exclamation points!)
PPS - Next post will have both knitting content and photos.
