Help! I need an intervention! I've gotten into s p i n n i n g.
My more athletically-inclined readers are assuming "indoor group stationary bike workouts" (which is bizarre, frankly).
My Deadhead readers are dreamily reminiscing about those far-out concerts, dancing to Sugar Magnolia.
And my fiber friends are nodding their heads, saying it was just a matter of time...
I am referring to the kind of spinning where you take prepared wool and twist it to form yarn, an ancient domestic art with tons of romance and mystique. Because I don't have enough hobbies. That take a lot of tools and space. That you need to buy stuff for. And that don't get me out of the house.
I always said I'd never take up spinning like many of my other knitting friends have. And I still say I won't buy a pricy spinning wheel with all the expensive ancillary equipment and learn technical wheel mechanics. No, I've gotten sucked in by a basic, non-mechanical piece of wood that's brilliant in its simplicity and functionality: the spindle.
Here's mine, with my first attempt at yarn:
Simple and basic. But it's worrisome, none the less. Why do I need more yarn??? I have more yarn than I can knit in my lifetime, so now I've decided to manufacture the stuff on my own? And once you spin it, you don't stop there. You then have to wind it on bobbins, ply it together, skein it, soak it, hang it to dry, and wind it into a ball BEFORE you even begin to knit with it!
So I've taken a hobby I already spend too much time obsessing about and taken it about seven steps back.
What can I say: it's fascinating, mesmerizing, meditative and consuming me right now. Hey, it doesn't hurt anyone, right? (Though I've been eyeing the cat - all that soft fluffy angora-like raw material right in front of me...)
At least I'm not raising the sheep for the raw fleece, which adds about elebenty billion more steps to the process.
Yet.
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