What I love about spindle spinning...

I've already told you that I love spindle spinning, so here are a few of the reasons why...

First, I love seeing things transform. And the transformation from fiber to yarn is fascinating to me. That something as simple as twist, which I've played around with since I was a girl, from hair to paper to string, can be stored in fiber and other things, organizing them in ways that can then be manipulated in to any number of necessary and beautiful things ... wow.

The control-freak in me wants to play an instrumental role in this process. If you go all the way down to the fiber before it's been spun, you can make choices and decisions that affect EVERYTHING from that point on.

Of course, if you go all the way down to the biology creating the fiber in the first place, you can have even more control ... I'll get there, my friends. I'll get there.

But for now, I'm fascinated by the endless possibilities of yarn creation by spinning.

So why spindle-spinning? Well, I kind of like to make things myself. Last summer I made myself a backstrap loom and learned to weave (thanks Laverne!!!). Then I decided to take up spinning, so I made myself a few different spindles: top whorl, bottom whorl, make-shift tahkli, and all of these with what I call a turkish twist for making center-pull balls, which I have come to discover isn't necessary for making center-pull balls right on the spindle... Maybe someday I'll try spinning on a wheel and discover that I've been missing out, and then I'll buy one. But I can assure you, the drum carder purchase will come first. In the meantime, I love love love the way the spindle feels. I like that something so simple and so small can do so much ... all at my command.

But why do all of this? I call it charm. I'm still a beginner when it comes to spinning. My consistency is improving each day, but I'm not a machine. And, I don't want to be a machine. I think the inconsistencies, so long as they don't compromise the required structural integrity of the yarn for the next step of making something else, is the charm of spindle-spinning yarn myself. And I think the number of ways I can play on the inconsistencies to create beautiful yarns is fun! That's not to say that consistency isn't worthwhile; the control-freak in me says that the inconsistencies are made more beautiful by my choice to be inconsistent, so I'm always striving to increase my say in the end product as I'm spinning...

So that's a bit about why I love spindle-spinning. Do you love spindle-spinning, too?