now... my very first spinning!

I have a bunch of christmas stuff ready to post up, but I'm waiting in case some of the family accidentally remember I mentioned that I have a blog and come and look at it. in the meantime...

My friend Ellie showed me how to use a drop spindle to make yarn (DANGER, new craft alert) and it was FUN! I'm certainly going to need a bunch of practice, but what I got I don't consider too bad for a first attempt!

I had four ounces of dyed wool top (still new to the terminology, but I think I have it right), and here were my results (on the right were the first two ounces, on the left the second two ounces):

I still need to read up on spinning to get the hang of the whole "S" and "Z" twist thing and figure out how to get the right amount of twist in the singles so the plied yarn is as twisty as I want it to be. And to learn all the right things to call everything so I can sound like I know what I'm doing. A lot of learning how to be better is learning all the terminology so you at least know how to ask questions to get the answers you want.

Here's what that second two ounces looked like on the drop spindle before being plied.

and here's a closer view at those second two ounces.

Not perfect, but I am pretty darn proud of my first attempt. Now I just have to figure out what to weave, knit, or crochet using the stuff!

Oh, and I'm borrowing a spinning wheel from the WSSA, so look out, there may be more of this in my future!