Progress and Casualties
First, the progress: I’m on 4/4 turtles in the Ocean Rain top from John Arbon Textiles:
The spindle I’m using here is one I’ve had a rockier relationship with. It’s made by Subterranean Woodworks and feels well balanced, but I’ve never felt like I was getting it to spin well. I’d draft faster than twist entered, and feel my yarn start to drift apart. I feel like I’ve finally got a better understanding of how to use it. First, it’s just not well suited to really fine yarns – it doesn’t spin fast enough for the high twist and it’s too heavy for the finer fibers if you need time to get the twist into them.
Even deliberately trying to spin a bit heavier just didn’t quite get me there though. I still found it hard to get the spindle going and a bit hit or miss each time I set it spinning. Then I was watching a YouTube video on spinning with a dealgan and in the second half of the video she explains how depictions of spinners with dealgans are shown flicking it with the palm down, two fingers on either side of the yarn half hitched to the knob at the top. You’re still using your thumb against the pads of your fingers to flick it, but it’s the thumb against the ring and middle finger instead of thumb and index. I looked at it and thought “huh, the top of my cross-arm has a really similar knob. I wonder how that would work?”
You know what? I found it’s working a lot better for me! I’m getting a smoother more consistent spin and I’m more confident I’m maximizing speed and spinning time now. It’s not going to magically make the spindle well suited for thin high twist yarns, but I feel like I’m going to get much nicer results for slightly heavier yarns without fighting the spindle. I’m enjoying using it far more.
On the thinner side, I’m getting close to done with another cop of the pomegranate red singles destined for the 3ply. But this has come at a cost…
Yup, I dropped it one too many times* when I put too much twist in and the yarn snapped. Remarkably, after straightening the hook a bit, it still spins smooth and fast so kudos to Cynthia Woodworker for a great spindle. But I can’t find the little piece of wood that broke off. I immediately searched the floor of my office where I dropped it to no avail. I even swept each corner of the room carefully and examined the dust for it. No luck. I really can’t believe the impact blasted it into dust, so instead I’ve concluded there must be a hidden portal in my office floor that swallows small craft items** but does not capture cat fur, bits of cardboard from the cat scratcher, or glitter.
In any case, I’m more than half way through the month and I’ve kept to my goal of at least 20min per day. The closest I came to missing it was on Saturday, when I spent most of the day at a local Green Bag Lady meet up to sew grocery bags from recycled fabric to hand out to people and discourage the use of single-use plastic bags. It was 6+ hrs mostly in German (there were a couple other English speakers, but I was the only basically non-German speaker) and well, we were working. So I got home pretty exhausted but somehow mustered the energy to get my spinning done anyway.
I’ve promised myself that if I miss a day I have to make it up the next day – I can’t count “extra” minutes spun on past days to skip a day. I think this has really kept me on track because if I miss a day it means 40min the next day. On the other hand, if I get started and I keep going. I’m making more progress on that particular day and in the end, the goal is to get spinning done.
What tricks do you use to keep yourself on track?
*This was a theme this week, I also dropped my old US phone one too many times and it died a sudden and complete death. I’d say I’ve been carrying everything like delicate China since these disasters, but that’s not true.
**This is undoubtedly where the small rubber stopper to my bead needle also went when the cat knocked that onto the floor.