Yes, Sir! Yes, Sir! Three bags full!

So this morning I’m perusing the Spin-A-Long page here on KP and find the link to a you tube video about magic loop. I’ve been magic looping a while, so I don’t know exactly why I go watch it, but I did. And it was very good. I watch a few more random videos and decide- maybe I should watch one about drop spindling. So I do a search and what shows up but Abbie Franquemont’s Spindling Basics. So I watch that and go clean out the rest of my emails and a thunderstorm brews up and my computer goes down!! So, since it’s a lightning frenzy outside, I decide I better not do the dishes and laundry like I was planning (Mom always told me not to because of the increased risk of lightning strike.). I’m thinking, thinking, thinking… what should I do today?? I decide to do some spinning. Now let me tell you, Abbie Franquemont’s book and dvd are still in my cart here at KP, along with the Turkish spindle and a few packs of roving!!! Still in the cart!! Not even ordered yet!! So I follow my little niece’s example (courtesy of my good miserly brother- like me :D) and decide I’m going to spin some plastic. PLASTIC?? You say?? Yes, grocery sacks, or Walmart, or wherever happens to have been where I shopped last and forgot to take my own canvas bags. So I start getting one ready… I lay it out all smooth with the pleats all straightened out and fold it in half and in half again. Now I have the bottom seam in one 3” segment on one end- I cut that off. I also cut straight across the other end, too, to get the handles and irregularities off of that end.

Next I take a little of my sewing and quilting background and make a continuous strip from this…. I fold back some layers so that there is just one folded edge at the top and many folded layers toward the bottom. I start cutting ¾” (or so) strips from the bottom- but not cutting all the way through that top fold. I’m stopping 1- 1 ½” from the top- making what looks like fringe.

Now I free an end over at the left by going to the top of one of the previous cuts and cut it at an angle out to the edge.

Then I put my fingers under the plastic so I can see where I’m going and cut just through one layer- start at the second cut and angle over to the left and meet up with the original first cut- but around the back. This picture is the set-up:

And here's the cut:

I continue that way across the top until the last one is cut. Now I have a little pile of fiber (??).

Now I need a spindle. I'm eyeing a knobby looking piece of wood I got at the thrift store to use for a darning egg. It has a hole drilled in one end- but I don' think I have a dowel anywhere that size. Still thinking... now I think I have just the thing. I go raiding my daughters’ closet for the tinker toys. Yes!! I grab the longest piece and a wheel to put on the end. Then I find another piece that slides on the rod (for weight). It took me a while to get the leader on there. I was almost ready to break out the double-sided tape when I got it tight enough to work! But the second thing for weight just seemed too cumbersome so I took it off.

Two cut bags worth of fiber (??) later and I’ve completed spinning what is on the bottom one in the second picture. And then I decided to take some pictures! So the third bag was cut and spun with the original extra weight added. This time, I got smarter and used the little notch in the bottom of the dowel to start. After slipping the strip in there, I crammed it in the wheel and spun until I had enough to be beyond the end of the dowel.

So after my 2 spindles are THREE BAGS FULL (!!!) I’m so excited I can’t hardly stand it- can’t take time to take pictures or write… can’t take time to upload pictures. But I do- get the entire blog done, I’m previewing to check for typos and the girls get home from

school. I didn’t click on publish. And the lightning struck again, the electricity blinked and I lost it all!!! Argh. So this is attempt number two to publish this.

On my nightstand: Confessions of a Knitting Heretic by Annie Modesitt. Annie writes about the question or the possibility of our hands knowing how to do something our brain doesn’t. Could it be? Can there be a genetic memory handed down to me by my English, Irish, and Dutch Great + Grandmothers? I’m sure they could spin in their sleep. If I let my hands do what they want, will my brain follow? Or will it be stubborn and try not to get addicted to this new craft. Oh, how I hope it will follow. Be a sheep, brain. Be a sheep.

On my tinker toys: (heehee) grocery sacks.

On my future wheel: All the love I can muster.

On my mind: Musings of lunacy with hints of common sense thrown in. The common sense is like the teeny colored nubs in Donegal tweed. J I just discovered that my two spindles of ‘yarn’ are spun in the opposite direction. The first one I rolled the spindle against my thigh to start it spinning. The next one I tried thwicking the spindle in midair like Abbie did. HA!! Now I can’t do as I planned and ply them together!! Argh! Two bags full wasted. Not really. It’s a learning process!! And I could just spin two more spindles full these two different ways. Heehee. And THEN I’ll ply. Next post! Maybe I will have ordered my real stuff by then, too!