Its spinnin' ITS SPINNIN'!

Yes a wheel ya'll .. whatta you think I mean some rims or something? OMG. I suppose I should rephrase, I'M SPINNING! Like yarn! Well sort of yarn like. In fact I was more than slightly disheartened when I started. Watching Dana and Morgan, it looks so effortless, so fluid. It made my stop start herky-jerky nonsense feel terrible. So I had put it away for a rest. On Saturday when Dana came over avec dogs I took the opportunity to get some more help. First she helped me tune up Victoria a bit. We sanded and waxed the bobbins for more slip, then she told me the secret. Yes there is a super huge well hidden secret. It made my out put go from this:

To this:

Now I'm sure to the uninitiated you think, huh? BUT OMG THE DIFFERENCE. The evenness, the more control, the whole fluid thing. Now I shall impart this small pearl of wisdom to the universe. Are you ready? Really? Do you want a coffee? I can wait...

Ok here it is. SLOW DOWN. I know those two words don't seem like much, but to a new spinner it was like the light bulb went on. Oh, I don't have to treadle as fast as I can and get all freaked out? You mean slow and steady actually does win the race? WHO KNEW. Not me apparently. What an incredible difference it made.

Then I remembered some silk hankies I had from a failed drop spindle effort (side note: hating the drop spindle does not automatically mean you will hate spinning. Trust me on this) and got them out. Well Holy Shit! Hot diggity damn.

Luckily I had bought some undyed hankies too.. these are FUN! I know they are minimal effort besides prep, but the wow is too wow for me not too.

I have to thank Cameron, Morgan's wee one for dyeing a funny colourway for me to learn on. It was cool to see the funky, slightly chunky colours blend the way they did.

The sweater body is done, sleeve one on needles. Oh yeah!

Hope everyone had a lights on weekend too..