It's not size that matters!

For the past few months I have been thinking my hand spun yarns should be thicker. That I should somehow be working against my natural tendency to spin fine yarns. I love the look of handspun bulky yarn. I love the natural lumps and bumps that appear. The new Spin Off Magazine cover has a lovely picture of coiled yarn. It’s amazing. The colors, the texture, the uniformity of the bumps all tantalize me. I read the article telling how to achieve this beautiful yarn. I slept on the information. I let the thoughts of thick and thin yarn spin through my mind for the next couple of weeks. I worked on a yarn in progress. It is lovely. It is about worsted weight. That is chunky in my spinning world. (Pictures will appear here soon!)

Then I started spinning Vitality. With the first bits of fluff drawing from my hand to the spindle I knew this would be a lace weight yarn. There are many reasons for this. The original reason was I have a small amount of fiber. The batt is less than an ounce. A finer yarn will have more yardage per ounce than chunky. This is logical. Then as I continued to spin my thoughts of thick and thin yarn played louder in my head. The artistic quandary finally started to fall into place. I enjoy spinning thin singles. I enjoy seeing how thin I can make the yarn without it breaking! Beyond that challenge, I enjoy knitting lace and socks.

Thus as much as I enjoy the beauty of the bulky handspun yarns and the artistic achievement of coiled yarn, when would I knit with them? What would I make with them? I suppose I would have a lovely scarf or two. I might have a cool hat too. That would not be so bad. It would be fun to show them off. But the deliciousness of the accomplishment is just not the same for me. I will continue to spin my fine even singles. I will stop thinking I need to spin chunky yarn just to prove something to the spinning police. I will love my yarns. And I will knit the delicate accessories these yarns are meant to be knit into!

Vitality

In October I spun a lovely batt of wool, bamboo, and firestar into my first ever chain plied yarn, Stained Glass. It was the theme for the October Spindlers group challenge on Ravelry. The experience was ground breaking for me. I found myself looking at family relationships I had avoided because of the pain associated with losing my father. I was open to working through this. I listened to the messages that came while practicing the meditative act of spinning. I gained more than insight with this experience. I gained courage to renew my faith in close relationship. I gained courage to reach out and make friends with people I may never meet face to face. I also won the random drawing to pick the theme for January.

I spent almost a week thinking about the theme. I am a personal trainer and coach many people about their life force. I wanted the theme to be about life energy and how we express that. What I came up with was Vitality. We all possess a vital energy, a vital life force. After choosing the theme I didn't spin much. There were holiday gifts to knit.But now we are in January. I have to spin for my chosen theme.

So I spent some time looking at my stash of fiber. I thought about what it says about vitality. I went out into the cold and picked a friend up from the airport when I really wanted to be home where it was warm. I played on the internet looking at space weather. I slept on it.

This morning I looked at the fiber again. There is a lovely blue Cotswold Wool. There is a nice brown with red fleck Jacob Wool. And finally a white Mohair and soft wool blend.
I carded up some and tried it out. A smallish sample of about 2 yards. It is lovely. Beautiful sheen, nice halo from the combo of Cotswold and Mohair. But it did not speak to me of Vitality. I remembered I had another batt hidden away. It is the Tea Cup Yorkie that came with my newest Yorkieslave Artworks spindle! I pulled it out and realized it looks just like the videos of the sunspots I was watching last night. Talk about Vitality! Where would we be without the sun?

May the life force energy fill you and feed you as the New Year unfolds into it's perfection!