At Stitches West 2006, I watched a demonstration of spindle spinning and I was intrigued. On the recommendation of the demonstrator, I bought a bottom whorl spindle and some sample roving.
After trying to teach myself how to spin without success for a year, I signed up for the “Spinning For Knitters” class at Stitches West 2007. I decided that if I couldn’t learn how to spin in this class that I would give up spinning and move onto something else.
We learned to spin on top whorl spindles in the class. That’s when I realized that part of my problem was that I didn’t grok the bottom whorl spindle; the top whorl worked for me.
My first attempts actually looked like yarn…not the best yarn on the planet, but definitely yarn. I was hooked!
I bought a roving sampler and worked my way through that.
Then I tried larger pieces of roving…getting better.
I started my first “real” spinning project using the spindle…better still!
I came into a little extra cash, and I bought a spinning wheel. It was love at first sight.
My first spinning on the wheel looked good; I just needed more practice on plying.
The rest is history.
