Fighting with Fiber

I enjoy spinning, but I seldom set aside time these days to do it. For some reason, I feel that I need a large uninterrupted period of time to do it. And lately, those times have been taken up with other things (such as my freelance editing projects). But for the first time in about a year, I have 0 editing projects on my plate, so I decided to use my son's nap time as spinning time.

I pulled out some fiber that I got at the DFW Fiber Fest earlier this year: 2 oz of "super fine" wool.

This is a third of the fiber.

I got the wheel ready, got the fiber ready, attached the fiber to the leader, and off I went. Snap! The draft was too thin and the fiber broke apart. Tried again. Got fiber attached to leader and off on round 2. Oops! I forgot to put the fiber through the orifice. Take three.

I finally get going, but the wheel is pulling in the yarn rather quickly. Adjustment. Now not quickly enough and I'm getting very very overspun yarn. Adjustment. Back and forth until I get something that mostly works. But I'm not feeling comfortable with what I'm doing. I'm getting very uneven yarn and much thicker than I usually get. What is going on?

It took me a while to realize it, but it wasn't fully the wheel being out of adjustment. It was me. I'm rusty at spinning. After a while, I started to get back into the rhythm (I also split the fiber into three sections) and it started to feel more normal again, but the yarn I made just doesn't feel even or balanced at all. And I stopped after about 45 minutes because my hands were just tired.

What I did today. Wow! Look at that overspun bit right there about to go onto the bobbin. Yikes!

I've signed up to take two spinning classes at next year's DFW Fiber Fest. I can't take those classes with rusty spinning technique! Fortunately, the FF is not until the end of March, so I have time. I may not get to spin every day, but I need to spin at least once a week (I want it to be more but once a week feels like a promise I can keep). And instead of a huge chunk of time, I need to just spin a little here and there so I can get back my endurance and my skill and my comfort level. Now I just have to make sure that I keep this experience in mind and get the wheel out more often.

New blog

So I've started a new blog. If you look at my profile, you'll see that I have several other blogs here on Blogger. And all have been inactive for quite some time. I've been feeling like blogging more lately, but sometimes what I want to write crosses over some of the separate blogs (something about knitting while raising a toddler or reading while knitting) and I'm not sure where to put the post. So instead of having four separate blogs -- one for knitting, one for sewing, one for reading, and one for raising my son -- I now have one blog that can cover any of those topics or anything else that I want to write about.

Now I don't have an excuse not to blog. Or at least one less excuse.