What does Spinning mean to you?

What does Spinning mean to you?

 

Some think it is a child turning round and round really fast, while playing, until they get dizzy and fall down.  Some may even think of a merry-go-round from their childhood, and how fast they could make it go, before they jumped on.When you type in spinning on the internet you get things like spinning bicycle wheels, tires, exercise bikes. 

However, to us Fiber Artists, it means twisting fiber, fleece, or wool roving, silk, alpaca, angora, mohair, flax, etc. into a continuous thread using either a spinning wheel or a drop spindle.  Spinners can spin their thread thick or thin, plied or un-plied, some will dye their yarns, while others leave it natural.

Fiber artists use their yarn for knitting, crocheting, or weaving projects.  I have seen people even use unspun fiber for knitting, crocheting, weaving and yes even felting.  I love seeing all these different ways of using fiber.

I love to spin my yarn into thin singles, 2 plied yarn and even a 3 ply yarn.  I knit a lot of different projects from my yarn, like socks, hats, scarves, boot cuffs, cowls and shawls.  I have even wove triangle shawls, scarves and overshot coverlet squares with my handspun yarn.  I have even dyed my own yarn too, its fun to watch the fiber absorb the dyes.

Spinning is a form of art and is done in a variety of ways, which makes it exciting, because no 2 yarns are the same.



Listen Closely, can you hear the whirring of my spinning wheel......and new listing

It's 6:08 am here at Spinning Ginny, the light is on in the spinning room and if you listen closely you can hear the whirring of my spinning wheel.  There's a slight squeak now and again as the spinning wheel spins and the white alpaca fiber slowly twists into a single ply strand of yarn on the bobbin.  Sue-chi (who turned 15 on Saturday), is sleeping on the rug.  The first bobbin is getting closer to being refilled, yet again.

I have a new listing today as well, its not much, but its something all the same.  It's a new Dish Cloth.  Its my own pattern and I named it "Aunt Fay's Dish Cloth" after my Great Aunt Fay.  I used Sugar'n Cream Hot Purple Cotton Yarn. 

http://www.spinningginny.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=121&products_id=578



Lost in my own spinning world

Sometimes I just get lost in my own little spinning world.  Once I get into the spinning room, my thoughts are on nothing but fiber, spinning, carding, weaving and knitting.  Today was not the exception!  I knew that today I'd be concentrating on where I left off yesterday on my spinning.

This bobbin was almost completely full yesterday with handspun 3 ply white alpaca and my goal for today was to finish filling it.....

which I accomplished in the first 27 minutes and 27 seconds of spinning.  I then wound it off onto my niddy noddy, washed it and hung it to dry.

Then I began plying up another skein (22nd) and managed to almost have the bobbin full again in 1 hour.

This is what happens when I get lost in my own little spinning world!  Now that lunch break is almost over, I think I'll go and get lost again.  I so LOVE to spin!

 

 

 

Happiness is #fiber and a #spinningwheel

Give me some Alpaca, Mohair, Blueface Leicester, Merino, Camel Down, Angora, Shetland, Romney, Jacob, Australian Bond, etc., and my spinning wheel and I'm happy.  I only have a few of these fibers right now, so I'm making do with what I do have.

I just finished refilling the second bobbin and started in refilling the third bobbin.

 

I can't stay long as I want to get back to the wheel and see how far I get in refilling this last bobbin before the day is out.  I would love to have 2 more skeins to dye at the end of the week.......that's my goal anyways.

The list of fibers I gave at the top is my goal of fibers to spin this year again.  So far I've only been spinning Alpaca.  But keep watching I will be spinning up some of these other fibers soon.