Conditional Success

I got my spinning 'corner' set up last night but was too tired to try to figure out the new wheel and the new technique I learned at Madrona.

Then, this morning Doug invited me 'out' for brunch, so my day is very late getting started. :}

When I got back I grabbed some fibre and a core and started trying to figure out what needed to be done.

I can report conditional success. I need to read up on settings for the wheel and get comfortable with the core spinning technique, but ultimately I can see that with a little perseverance success is not that far away. (She says, hopefully.)

Obviously I don't have complete control over how much fibre I'm feeding onto the core - yet. OTOH, the results do look sort of fun - and the sample isn't wet finished yet, either, so I'm sure it will change somewhat once that is done, too.

I'm also not very happy with the fibre I'm using. It's old and feels dry and brittle but since I'm still at the slippery end of the learning curve I don't want to use anything 'better' on my practising. Once I've got the hang of it and feel like I've got the wheel tuned properly, then I'll try some of the nicer fibre I've got here.

The goal is to produce a nice novelty yarn for primarily knitters to add to my stock of weaving yarns that I sell at shows like Fibres West and the Handweavers, Spinners and Dyers of Alberta conference. And perhaps at the local craft shows. We'll see how it goes. I doubt I'll have anything saleable for this years Fibres West - there just isn't enough time to get up to speed and produce anything I'd feel comfortable selling - in less than two weeks!

As for the weaving, that's been going more slowly than I'd like but I'm still battling fatigue so rather than fret about what I'm not getting done I continue to try for two shawls a day and celebrate if I get one done like I did yesterday. Rather than weave a second shawl I took some time to have coffee with my neighbour who has been housebound. It was refreshing for us both, I think. :)

Today I have a client coming at 1 pm to look at table runners and then I'll head for town and maybe visit another friend for a little while. I'm just glad it's stopped snowing. The road crews have managed to clear most of the roads but it feels much like a lab rat must feel as the snow banks are piled higher than I am tall in many places.

Spring is coming soon, right?