And so she spins

(no, I don’t usually start all my posts with sibilant titles)

My lack of video card brings me some extra time. I should be spending this extra time doing things like cleaning/organizing and knitting on the plethora of baby things I have to get done before next fall (I’m not preggers, but I have a pile of friends that are). Instead, I’ve cooked several labor intensive meals and have been piddling around doing a little of this and that and the other.

With two cats, I get very little time to spin in the apartment – but yesterday they were passed out in the sunbeam from the open window, so I spent a happy hour or so drawing fiber. I use a large top-whorl drop spindle (how spinning works), and I’m currently working on about 6 oz of unidentified blended wool. I’m pretty sure it has Blue-faced Leicester in it, but it’s got other stuff too – the woman who sold it to me at an SCA event basically gave it to me for pennies after I bought two spindles from her, and she didn’t know what it was.

Whatever it is, it’s pretty, has a very long staple, and is nice to work with when my fingers are feeling out of practice. I’d have pictures, but pictures mean opening a photo-editor, and without a video card… well, that’s not really advisable at the moment.

I’ve also eagerly been following BrooklynTweed’s Anatomy of a Handspun (part1 and part2) – and my desire to get an actual spinning wheel has increased yet again. I know I ought to just set aside some money from each paycheck until I can buy one, but the daunting process of figuring out *what* wheel to buy is rather offputting.

So I suppose, until I can find someone to sit down with me and show me the ropes of wheel-spinning, and what kind of wheel I want, I’ll stick with spindling. After all, the only clothes that people wore for thousands of years were spun entirely with spindles – I figure it won’t hurt me to do my spinning that way for a little while longer yet.