Spinning

I don’t know if anyone still remembers, but I own two spinning wheels.  I haven’t used them in ages because spinning wheels and baby animals are just not a good combination, and while I was waiting for Logan and Max to mature, I just got out of the habit.  Periodically, I’d think about spinning, but didn’t really do anything about it.

Then I had surgery and my body was using all my energy for healing.  As I started to get stronger, I realized that spinning might be a good thing for me because it takes minimal energy, both physical and mental.  Mickael brought my Kromski Symphony downstairs and set it up for me.  I sat down to spin and it was like I had never stopped.  I spun for an hour, and when I quit, my arms were shaking - ooops!  I had over done it, again.

I waited a couple of days and tried again, this time timing myself for 20 minutes.  I hadn’t worn myself out that time.  I started spinning everyday, just a little bit at a time at first, being careful not to overdo it.  I’m now strong enough to spin for an hour at a time, and yesterday, I completed a bobbin!

This is 75% Blue Faced Leicester (BFL) and 25% Tussah silk from Blue Moon Fiber Arts in the Rook-y color way (black with green, blue, and purple) from the Raven Clan.  I started with 8 ounces total and I’m spinning a three ply yarn.  The singles are 40 wraps per inch and I’m using the 10:1 ratio on the whorl.  According to my notes (thank heavens I keep a little notebook for each wheel), I started this bobbin on November 10, 2012.  I hadn’t spun much on it then, I’d really just gotten it started and hadn’t done much more.  Max would have been one and Logan would have been two, so they must have been having a really good nap when I started this, because at those ages, neither one was really good to spin around, although Logan never attacked the spinning wheel.  Max used to jump on it while I was spinning and try to take it down like a tired wildebeest who had fallen behind the herd.  This time around, Logan has been sleeping at my feet and Max has sat on my lap (which is treadling of course) and plopped right on top of my fiber and held it in his paws for me.  Thankfully, he doesn’t do this every time I spin, and when he does, he doesn’t mind when I reach under him and pull more fiber out.  He’s a strange little cat.

Anyway, I’ve got the first bobbin finished, and I got the second bobbin going yesterday afternoon, so I can keep right on spinning!  The spinning uses less mental energy than knitting does and it’s making me feel like I’m less of a lump right now.  Some days, by the time I finish homeschooling Caleb, I have no mental energy left.  Knitting on those mitts mostly happened over the weekends when I wasn’t using my brain for homeschooling.