Whoosh!

That was the sound of me getting sucked into the spinning vortex. It's all Angela's fault. She acts so innocent, but really she's a shameless spinning enabler! She sent me a beautiful drop spindle a couple of years ago, along with some beautiful fiber from Lisa Souza. I made felt balls. I never tried the spindle. Until yesterday. Heh.

Enter Barbara. Do you see the evil look on her face?

She knows I am about to get sucked totally and completely in.

I really wasn't even going to go to her class. But I figured I really should try that spindle. So I went. First she showed us different spindles, including this funky one with beads around the edge.

Then we started spinning with pens. One person would hold the pen and twist and the other drew out the roving.

Here's my first handspun, it's the single I drew out while my friend Lynn twisted. Then I let it twist back on itself.

I may have been absurdly a bit proud of it.

It was all downhill from there. We tried the drop spindles. According to Barbara, I was apparently a spinner in another life. Perhaps it was that mad gleam she saw in my eye? I obviously liked spinning laceweight.


At that point, I had to rush home and feed the small hungry persons that inhabit my house. It's probably a good thing I had to leave. But I didn't let a small thing like that stop me. I wanted to try plying.

This was somewhat less successful. So I started on the dyed roving I have. Ooooooooooooooooooh. I think I may have eaten lunch, but I'm not sure. I found the dyed roving to be much more difficult to handle. But where there's a will, there's a way. Hee.

Somewhere around this point, I began taking the name "drop" spindle a little too literally, and broke the hook off my lovely cherry spindle.

But I was not to be denied, especially since my husband has wooden toy wheels (wait 'til I show you his train!!!) and dowel. So first up, I made one with a hook in the dowel

and a channel along the side of the dowel.

I notched it.

It is rough, but I was desperate to get my next fix.

Enter the my husband, the engineer. Here's a hook.

with a channel up the front

and through the middle of the dowel!

It spins like a dream. It is perfectly balanced. And, er, I will learn to do it justice soon. :)

I moved on to another barely successful plying experiment:

And really, I am absolutely pathetically hooked. :sigh: It really is zenlike.

Off to do some spinning! :whimper: