The lovely Hayden and I had our spinning class on Saturday. It was very much fun. It is also amazing how quickly one can get better at it.

I tried four different wheels while I was there. I started on a double treadle Schacht, moved to the Ashford Traveller, back to the Schacht, then I tried a single treadle Lendrum, and snuck in a go on the Ashford Traditional. I was pleasantly surprised that I liked each of them. The Schacht and the Lendrum were by far the smoothest to treadle. And in my newbie opinion, the Lendrum was even smoother than the Schacht. The Traditional would be next, followed by the Traveller, however it was still a fun wheel to spin on, and out of all of them, I like the look of the Traveller the best.

The first half of class was spent learning about wheels and spinning. The second half was spent on fleece. Now, I’m probably going to butcher terms here, because this is completely new to me.

The instructor rolled out a fleece cut from a sheep. It had been manhandled a bit in classes, so it was no longer in the obvious shape of a sheep, but it was still all one big piece, primarily. She went through the fleece and taught us about what to look for when buying one. As this was happening, I was thinking about two things, well, three. First, I was thrilled at the thought of roaming fiber fairs and looking through fleece with some degree of practical knowledge as to what in the heck I was looking at and for. Second, I was thinking about the ribbing I would take, probably for months and certainly in company, from the husband the day I come home with a sheep in a bag. Third, I was wondering how Hayden felt about spending a good couple hours looking at a pile of sheep locks on the floor instead of continuing to work on her drafting and spinning, which the poor thing had been struggling with quite a bit.

And right here, I’ll officially say, when she CAN’T interrupt me or accuse of false claims, that the first bobbins I spun looked JUST. LIKE. HERS. I still have them. I can prove it. They were spun two years ago and I hated it SO much, I gave the borrowed wheel back within the first week and determined never to do it again. See? The only other spinning I’ve done since then was at Columbine Yarns a couple months ago, when I spent a couple hours in her shop, and it got considerably better. And you saw how I did in class. Don’t give up, my sweet! You can do it.

And while we’re on the topic, here are the skeins of singles I came home with-

Apparently, I over-twist.

Getting back to the fleece…. We learned what skirting is, warning signs to look for, how to check for second cuts, etc. She showed us about crimp and explained what it means. Even if I don’t wander fiber fairs, I think this information will help if I were to buy raw fleece on eBay. I know better what I’m looking at.

Then we hand carded fleece to spin. As I was thinking, “no freaking way am I going to do this in quantity”, Hayden leaned over and whispered that it had been her favorite part. Go figure. So we’ve worked out a little arrangement. I’ll wash it, she’ll card it, I’ll spin it.

Right, so aside from a wheel, I’m also going to want a drum carder…. hahahahahha yeah right….. unless I only spin roving. Roving is nice.

We spun our, (darn it, I can’t remember what those little rolled, hand carded things are called), watched a plying demonstration, and had to go. I didn’t want to go. How in the world can 6 hours in a chair go so fast?

There you are. I can buy a wheel at 10% off for the next week, and I can’t afford it. BUT, it was fun, and I want to do more.