You Spin Me Baby

In June a family friend, Julia, was going through her attic and over flow fiber arts supplies.  She asked if I might be interested in a spinning wheel, since she had one her mother had purchased in 1987 (I know because that is the postmark date) and had never unpacked.  I had always wanted to try a spinning wheel and jumped at this chance, since normally spinning wheels are prohibitively expensive, at least $300,  to a college student who only wants to try it, even though I liked playing with a drop spindle.

A lovely hand turned, numbered and signed wheel named Belle Fleur #80 by M&M Wilson made in 1976.

Since getting the wheel I have been spending quite a bit of time happily spinning away.  I would like to share some of the yarns I have produced since moving down here to Florida.  If you want to get odd looks and lots of attention unpack your spinning wheel in public down here in south Florida, the vast majority of people have never even seen a wheel, let alone in person.  It has been a fun way for me to meet people,and start conversations, especially when I found the Florida Fiber In convention where I met other people who share my joy down here.

Here are some of my recent spinning adventures.

(Here is a link to basic spinning terms, so that my friends who aren't spinners can have an idea of what I am talking about.)

This was one of the first few rounds I did, I hand dyed the roving first as a rainbow, then spun the wool into singles, then did a nifty technique called Navajo Plying (click here for a YouTube video of the technique, which reminds me of making a crochet chain) which lets you spin one single against itself so that you can preserve the color changes along the length of the yarn.  I chose this technique so that the yarn would actually have chunks of single colors.  I LOVE how the colors came out.  The roving I used was pretty rough so the finished yarn is scratchy, but I am thinking of making a rug out of it so I can enjoy the colors anyway.

The balls here are pictured with a nifty tool called a nostepinne (or nosty for short) which is a old fashioned way to wind these center pull balls of yarn.  This one is from A Spinner's Lair on Etsy, made from reclaimed cherry wood.

(For a really nice how-to lesson see the Fiber Fools post on the subject.)

These skeins of yarn were spun from pencil roving that I got with the wheel, fast and easy to spin up, but still pretty scratchy. It is made of two-plys, one grey, one white.

This was one of the first really soft yarns I have done.  Two-ply yarn from Louet's Silk/Merino blend, sadly I can not remember the color name, but it is still really pretty.  It is a soft sage green with hints of rose, gold and blue.  Truly touchable and cuddly yarn.

I am in love.  I have discovered the wonders of spinning with Blue Faced Leicester wool.  It is a long stapled, super soft wool, that has an amazing shine.  I have seen other spinners call it squishy and it is true, you just want to cuddle this stuff.  I am really happy with this because I dyed the roving and the dye struck far faster than I expected, turning the wool almost black when I applied the dark blues, greens and purples.  But I took the chance and spun it anyway, what a relief.  I am thrilled with the colour results.

This is the current project.  I am working again with some of the wool that came from Julia.  I had this eye popping turquoise, but it just looked flat, I wanted to add some visual texture and variation.  So I added some yellow-olive green color that I am not fond of on its own and carded them together.  

The Rovings

The rovings have been carded together with my hand cards and made into rags.  Here they are waiting in their basket for me to spin.

Here is some of the wool spun into singles, I will then spin it with another bobbin of singles to make a two-ply yarn.

The result reminded me of the turquoise my Mom has from Colorado, rich blue with veins of a yellow-green color that just are facinating.  I am totally excited by the results and I have about 3/4 of the bunch to ply yet.

Thanks for bearing with me, there should be more coming soon.

Big Steps

One of the big hurtles to business that I am finding working online is how to show people my work.  Much of my work is based on texture and touch, how do I convey that through a computer screen.  I have been taking some pictures of my work, but I am not satisfied with the quality of the images, whether is is the lighting, or the presentation, or another element.  I use photos to capture inspiration, to document experiments and the like, but photographing my own work is proving to be a huge challenge.  Jewelry is fairly easy to photograph for me, but fabric plays with light differently.  If I photograph yarn I want the color true, but that is turning out to be more difficult to do than I anticipated.  Then there are the scarves, just how to I show the pattern and drape of something so big?

The solution, find a professional.  Well easy said, but I am new to the area, without the connections I have developed over many years.  So what to do, call the local ArtServe branch.  They took less than 10 minutes and gave me names and numbers.  Rock my world.  Hopefully I will have gorgeous new photos to show everyone soon.  My goal is to properly display my work, so that (*crosses fingers*) I will be able to market, sell and share.

A word on Networking.  The single most important thing that school brought me was the time and motivation to network.  If I need thing X, say photography, and I cannot do it myself for whatever reason, then pass it to someone who can.  If I don't know anyone, someone I know will, be it an individual, or group, like ArtServe. The help these organizations offer is invaluable to anyone in the Arts (or in general, just ask my brother in politics, "It's all in who you know").  This links right into my belief that everything goes right into the discussion on six degrees of separation in Art? This is what happens in my life, it just keeps on circling into itself.

Fire Breathing...Raven?

We all know (well, I know) that artists have a habit of being, well, eccentric.  The same is true of theatre folks.  Those reputation are occasionally well earned, I personally have picked up some interesting talents from being around the cornucopia of people that inhabit these worlds.

In 2007 I worked fro the Pennsylvania Renaissance Fair as a costumer, I lived on the grounds from May until the fair ended in late October.  The fair is in a rural area, far enough from the local towns that not having a car was a very effective isolator.  One of the men who was to play a knight known as the "Dragon Of York" whose symbol was a blue dragon rampant.  His signature was breathing fire from horse back at the joust and around the grounds.

At one point during the season a few of us were rather bored and asked if he could teach fire breathing. Of course I jumped at the opportunity to add such a unusual talent to my skill list. So over a few weeks we practiced outside of the bunk houses.  By the end of the season I had a good grip on the process.  Then I came home and had the perfect opportunity to display this skill at a Halloween party, much to the joy of my friends back home.

Since then I pull the stunt out on special occasions, especially at bonfires because we already have the equipment out encase something goes sour (trying to head off Mr. Murphy).  I have never seen what I look like blowing fire, I just see the basketball-sized end of the flame in front of my face.  I have been told it looks really neat though.

On the Fourth of July this year I did a short show for my friends and was pleasantly surprised that someone had taken pictures of it.  Rob is an armature photographer with lots of talent and he has graciously allowed me to post copies of his work here in my blog.  He took far more pictures with a timer button, so that it works almost like a flip-book of what it looks like, which is really nice for me to see, hopefully it will help me improve.  These are the three photos he chose to post on Flicker.

You can see more of his work at:  www.flickr.com/photos/robthephotog

Here is the initial ball, when the fuel first hits the torch.

This is where the initial ball of fire spreads out and starts to move upwards.

And here is where I am almost out of breath, and the ball floats upwards from the torch.