Bitches Get Stitches

or at least for the next few weeks they are.

in preparation for the knot hysteria silk retreat,
i need to get my spinning skills up to snuff.
spindling has come pretty naturally to me,
and i’m moving past the “park and draft stage.”

however,
i’ll need to be fairly comfortable with a wheel to do all the spinning required for judith macKenzie mccuin’s silk class. (random: any other people with knowledge of irish names find it funny that she has both an “mac” name and “mc” name? just me? ok.)

so today i had my first wheel lesson with carol mcfadden.
before we got down to business,
carol gave me an amazing gifty:

you are reading that label on the ziploc correctly;
a little tuft of pure mongolian cashmere!

she remembered that months ago i said i liked cashmere, (though i ask you, who doesn’t?) and decided to give me some to spin on my spindle.

this is the kind of woman we’re dealing with people;
razor whit and heart of gold.

then we got down to it.

let me just say,
wheel spinning did not come as naturally as the spindle did.
getting my right foot involved seemed to cross some wires in the brain.
but carol assures me that i did very well for my first time,
and i came away with this skein:

as a knitter, i would never purchase this yarn.
i’m not that into thick and thin.
but i have to say
i’m pretty proud of the ugly bastard.
and since i already know i can spin fairly consistent singles on a spindle,

i’m confident that it’s only a matter of time until i can do so on a wheel.

here’s to not looking like a fool in july!

edit: also, i wrote my first article for the shop’s newsletter.
you should check it out!