Welcome to this week’s edition of Spinning Saturday. And if it wasn’t for a little bit of spinning that has happened this week, I wouldn’t have much to talk about. It has been a pretty weak fibre week and most of my knitting is on hiatus. This happens occasionally. In the meantime, I’ll dedicate my normal knitting time to other things like scrapbooking, and spring cleaning.
One thing that did happen was the arrival of my March Wildcraft fibre club.
This month’s theme was ‘Primrose’ and there were two varieties sent out. It was luck of the draw which you received, and I received 2 braids of the ‘thrum’ version, which is a gradient fibre going yellow, yellow-green, orange, yellow-green, yellow. The other version was ‘pin’ that went from yellow, yellow-green to orange.
I have to admit that I’m not a fan of yellow, mostly due to the fact that no one in my family can wear it. However, the fibre was beautiful and it jumped on the wheel almost immediately. I spun a few grams worth of laceweight singles and stopped. And I didn’t go back.
Yesterday, I finally realised that this just wasn’t the yarn for me. Even though I had picked out a pattern for the yarn, and split the fibre into the colour sequence I wanted, this just wasn’t going to happen.
And then something clicked.
A spark was lit and I was at the wheel faster than kids run to candy. I took the laceweight off the wheel and started with a fresh new bobbin. I started corespinning.
Yes. Corespinning.
I’ve never been much on art yarns. I find them infinitely fascinating, but because they are not overly practical yarns I’m not drawn to spin them. I want to be able to knit (practical) things from my handspun. I’m a very practical person. Crazy and weird, but practical.
However, corespinning (in its most basic form) seems to me to be verging on the edge of a practical yarn. I wanted to try it. I wanted to see if I could do it. It’s that whole idea of expanding the skill set.
I finished spinning up the last of the first braid today, so I don’t have any final numbers on yardage or pretty photos of skeins to show you. However, I found this entire experience fascinating and I saw how much I grew as a spinner by attempting it.
Do you remember when you first started spinning? How you had to make a lot of effort to manage to spin yarn? That’s exactly how I felt at first. I had to pre-draft out my fibre in order to spin it. I had to concentrate. I had to keep stopping the wheel. Yet, by the end of that first braid, I was spinning with ease. No pre-drafting was needed and the yarn just seemed to flow onto the bobbin like magic. It’s one of those learning curves I haven’t had to tackle in quite a while.
It was invigorating.
I have no idea how this yarn is going to wash up, however I do plan to knit (or crochet) with it. I want to see what it is like to work with and whether I can find practical applications for this, and potentially other art yarns. I want to play.
The yarn will get a spa bath, and I should have some yarny photos for you next Saturday. And if my wrists are up to it, I might even try casting it on.