W*#L! Where Wool becomes a four letter word

Today was part 2 of the spinning workshop, where participants got to spin on a wheel.

Let me preface the following discussion with one statement : It isn't as easy as it looks.

Learning to force, convince, beg, manipulate fluff into yarn requires practice and a level of intuitiveness, skill, and , yes I admit it, some luck. I am really happy that by the end of the day, the spinners all had their "light bulb moment", and I know that with practice, they will all be wonderful spinners who will adore spinning ,and make literally acres of beautiful yarns (what they made today was gorgeous stuff -- I am a colour junkie!).

But for today, learning the sneaky ways to transform the fluff into usable yarn was occasionally frustrating ... the word Wool was taken in vein a few times, and I may have heard a curse word muttered through clenched teeth as I wandered the room taking pictures and offering tips and advice - and occasionally ducking a projectile bump of roving.

(this picture was taken mere seconds before the offending wool flew through the air!)

This is the after picture of the wool behaving nicely -- but note the clenched fingers ... "spinning is very relaxing!!" LOL!)

Sharon and Ann were wonderful, patient and able to sooth the nerves of the most frazzled spinners -- the best instructors one could hope for in a learn to spin workshop. Quite a few spinners caught on to how to make a single on a wheel by lunch time, and those who found it more challenging all caught on right after we got back for lunch ... the yarn that was made today was gorgeous!

Everyone spun up white wool to start, then when they figured out how to manipulate the roving, their hands and treadling to get enough spin on the fibre to make a single ply, they got to select a bump from a basket of pretty coloured pencil rovings. Such pretty wools!

Some even spun dog hair -- last week on the drop spindle -- and knit it up over the week ... pretty eh?)

By the end of the day, W#*L wasn't a four letter word anymore! Almost everyone even bought a big bag to take home to make more (I think that's a great sign ... more roving means more spinning , more spinning means more spinners in the area -- maybe in a while we can start a spinning group too!)

Moving on to other things, I think tonight I am going to pick up the gusset stitches on T's big, ole, huge man sock, and start the decreases. We are going to Halifax tomorrow for a trip, so I will have 3 or 4 hours in the passengers seat to knit which should make a pretty good dent in them. I would like to get them finished by Knit Nite on Wednesday, but I think I might be delusional -- but a girl's gotta have goals, eh?