I have been spinning for six or seven years, I guess, using what many would recognize as a spinning wheel. Many years ago I failed horribly spinning on a spindle, but I’ve seen several friends in the community making yarn the really slow way (the Vikings used spindles to make yarn for ALL their cloth – even the sails of their ships). I thought I’d give this a try.

Well, this picture is of my second spindle, a so-called Turkish spindle. I snap the spindle shaft between my thumb and ring finger, and gradually pull fiber out and let the turning spindle twist it into yarn. After I get about a meter of yarn spun, I stop and wind it onto the cross arms.

The Turkish spindle differs in that it has crossed arms rather than a disc, like most (like my other spindle). When the yarn is wound in a particular pattern (over two, under one), a ball of yarn that pays out from the center is created. I’m having fun but it’s really slow to make yarn this way.

I get a lot of funny looks when I do this in public, but explain what I’m doing and how I do it. I also explain that I spin because knitting isn’t weird enough, and tend to win them over, but I’m amazed at the number of people who have no concept of where cloth comes from.

I’m spending part of the day spinning at Fiber Revival at the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in Newburyport.

I got here early so I could find a nice spot but I was edged out by even earlier arrivals! Still got a nice shady spot for the day.

It was all fun and games until it started to rain. It was a pretty quick bug-out.

I have recently had some success knitting socks. Being the antisocial dork that I am, I taught myself to knit, so I’ve had to break some bad habits (such as total disregard for stitch counts, stitches-per-inch, you know- those fussy bits.)

I’ve joined a knitting guild, though, and peer pressure (OK, maybe it’s pride) has made me step up my game… Rough edges and dropped stitches simply don’t pass muster.

So, after years of knitting I have finally achieved an expertise that might be optimistically termed “intermediate”, and have the minimum skill as required to knit socks… Herewith, the proof!

For the knitters, I can’t point to a particular pattern as this is an amalgam of whatever toe I felt like doing, finding a heel I could understand, and Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-off..

The self-striping yarn worked pretty well, eh?

I just returned from a day trip to Waldoboro, Maine, to retrieve some 16 1/2 pounds of roving I had professionally processed into roving. Four large bags were waiting for me. This is the result of 19-odd pounds of fleece from three Romney sheep. I apologize for not knowing their names.

I had purchased the fleece from farmers who raised the sheep for their handspinners-quality fiber. I then cleaned them to remove as much of the leftover crud as I could find (not all, as it turns out…) and bagged them loosely for the trip north or processing. I was headed to Fiber Frolic and arranged to drop off the bags there.

Nancy at New AIM Fiber Mill washed and picked it, then carded it to roving, all ready to spin.

For those of you that are number people, 19.2# of dirty fleece washed out to 16.9# of roving so there was but 2.3# of waste, including dirt, sheep sweat, lanolin, and (some) of the bits of hay and bedding I missed. But this roving is just beautiful!

The ribbon makes it easier to find the end…

I’m a sucker for “slow cloth”, and stumbled upon nålbinding, a technique that predates knitting and weaving.

I have yet to figure out nålbinding even after viewing several videos, but I made a couple of needles for the craft. Made of poplar, the were fashioned using a utility knife and sandpaper after sawing a blank from scrap wood.