Spinning Wheel, Spinning Round

About a month ago over six weeks, I took a yarn spinning class a month ago and had a blast. Maggie Casey, the co-owner of Shuttles, Spindles and Skeins in Boulder and the author of a terrific book, Start Spinning, was the instructor. And I don't think I could've learned from anyone better.

We got to first learn on a spindle, then on a wheel. Over the course of the class time, we washed, teased, and combed raw sheep fleece to make into wool yarn. The last class was devoted to dyeing the yarn we made with natural dyes. As cool as that was, the colors were a little too muted and earthy for me. But here they are:



These were some of my more "instructive" attempts at spinning and plying:



When I finally got good enough, I bought some dyed roving and spun and plied these skeins, which are likely going to be knit up into a shrug someday (not bad, huh?):



And here's what I'm working on now with a spindle:



I thought about buying a wheel, especially the Lendrum I first worked with or the Schacht Ladybug, but it was just going to be another rabbit hole I'd get caught in. Needless to say, my knitting projects suffered greatly and little got done.

But now I can see why people love yarn spinning - now I do too!