Floating on a Cloud

I don’t write a lot about spinning here at Colors of the Dragon, but I am today. I am motivated. Pulled out my spinning wheel today, cleaned and polished her up, figuring that I’d need to get on her good side before beginning. She is tempramental and seems like she just wants to be loved… and she is. I’ve tried to name her but I’m not good at that. I know that while I did name her last year, I’ve since forgotten, though her last momma named her Brun Hilda.. or something like that. I just think of her as “baby” and that’s what she’ll be in my mind as I’m not prone to talking to her unless I’m cursing, of course. She knows I love her.

I recently purchased the beautiful and luxuriously soft Frabjous Fibers, Vegan “Wool” and this was my first spin in months and months. It’s a half pound of the most silkiest fiber my fingers ever felt. As you can see from the pic, these are “Debbie Colors”, and this colorway is called “Deep Space, #9″… so clever and I love that. While these are my favorite colors, the other colorways in the store are definitely not safe from my grabbing hands. I pilfered properly purchased this treasure from Lisa at All About Ewe, the new LYS in Clark, NJ.

Let me just say that I had heard that spinning with this stuff is a dream and that has proved to be pretty accurate for me, as well. I am floating on a cloud, a fluffy blue/purply one. It’s a feast for the fingers, skin (since I’ve snuggled with this stuff) and eyes with colors bursting from my fingers; and just touching the fibers, I imagine, is much like touching silk, silk. The fibers shine and slip effortlessly through my fingers and feels pretty strong, despite the thread yarn getting so thin, sometimes thread like. I can’t get over the shininess. Strangely, this stuff is 100% nylon; or maybe YOU, the worldly spinner, are not surprised, but I’m pretty inexperienced and I am totally AMAZED. I’ve not spun that much as of right this second, but soon I’ll get to more of it. I’m taking my time.  Also, I usually have the tendency of letting the twist get past the draft zone by letting go of the forming yarn in front of the orifice.  I like that and it’s been working for me; but I find my fingers need to be in constant contact of the yarn.  They want to keep it smooth, it seems.  I don’t know, but I’m just trying to follow my instinct with this one and let go and enjoy the process.

While I really love the idea and still learning how to spin with “intention”, I just wanted to sit down and just focus on the sensations and trying not to put too much thought into what I’m doing or what I consciously would want the resulting yarn to become. I’m taking my time and just trying not to tread too quickly, which has been my tendency and the yarn twists too tightly. Really, my mind keeps drifting back to how seriously soft this fiber is… and very light and fluffy. Words cannot express.

Which brings to mind a book I saw at All About Ewe entitled, “The Intentional Spinner: A Holistic Approach to Making Yarn” I usually just browse spinning books for the visual stimulation and that will tell me if I’m interested. This time, I liked the visual enough to read a bit and I really love this book. This will definitely be my next fiber related book purchase. I’ve put the book in the back of the rack, but I suspect that someone will find, read it and maybe buy it, then I’ll be out of luck. This is a great resource book and I really like to be a spinner who could do intentional things to her yarn as she’s creating, which is why I love the idea of creating novelty yarns, but not sure if I will get into that, though it’s very interesting.

Well, let me get back to spinning while I can. The weekend is about to start in an hour or so, and I really need to get this initial burst of spinning fever out of my system (or maybe that’s menopause creeping into my life) before I’m motivated to get my girl out of harms way. If you have young kids, you’ll understand.