Spinning Saturday

I am still having issues with Blogger. WTF mate. When I upload images using Blogger tools it magically creates a thumbnail for my images and FTPs it along with my image to my web server. Well, it seems as though the magic is just not happening anymore – the thumbnail files are not complete. It is like a 1K file of nothing. Comparing posts when pictures work and posts when pictures don’t work that is the only thing I can find. Until the magic starts to happen again, just click on the long rectangles and you will see the photos. Or don’t.

On Saturday, I took my spinning class. It was hosted by the local spinners and weavers guild at the museum. The turn out was much larger than they anticipated. Apparently a lot of people want to be spinners. I was anxious to try a wheel because I feel a little unsuccessful with my drop spindle. I struggle to get things spinning then draft. Feels like I need one more arm or something. Why not have the feet help with the spinning?

This is the lovely wheel I was entrusted with by a kind guild member….

A Schacht Matchless. ooooh – says the crowd. Indeed it is nice. Smooth. Quiet. Lots of fancy settings that I know nothing about, but the spinners there changed a lot of things just for little ole me and my inexperienced spinning hands.

At first the spinning did not go well. There were a lot of, um, needy women at this class and not enough mentors to go around. So the mentors were running around trying to help people and got sucked in by needy people who must have someone sitting right next to them at all times (sorry if you are one of these types of people – at least you get your money’s worth everywhere you go unlike me). I grew impatient and just started spinning. Didn’t seem too complicated, but it was. I mean the wheel wasn’t. It was pretty straight forward. Doing everything in the right order and thinking about seven things at once was kind of tough for me. Getting the wheel spinning, pedalling, drafting, and winding onto the bobbin took a little practice. A very nice lady finally came over and gave me steps to say in my head until I got a good rhythm going.

Pretty soon everyone is spinning. Picture it. About 30 new spinners in the room, the concentration so thick you can feel it hanging in the air. The only sound is the whirring of nice wheels like mine and the rick-rack of the not-so-nice wheels. Then a woman says, “The guild has three wheels for rent if anyone is interested.” I have never seen so many women move so quickly at once. Seriously. It was a stampede of spinners. I felt bad for the lady who was taking names – it got ugly. I am number 15 on the list. You can rent them for a month. So I should see a wheel say, March? *sigh* This is unacceptable in my instant gratification world. So, I asked the very nice lady who gave me a spinning mantra what wheel she would recommend for a beginner. “The wheel you are on is nice. If you think you are going to do this for real don’t waste your money on an Ashford Kiwi (the one I was looking at up to this point). You will outgrow it in a year. Just plunk down the $800 now.” I just politely smiled and thanked her for the information.

Here is picture of my handspun (go ahead, click the box and have a laugh). It was a little embarrassing to wind it up on the niddy noddy, but I wanted it. I am into posterity type stuff.

Oh, Cynthia if you are reading this, I so did not spin that handspun yarn I posted about a couple weeks ago. It was the first handspun I ever BOUGHT. I can only wish to ever spin something that nice. Luckily I am a process not product kind of gal.