On November 15th, I spent the day at my local yarn store. It was a wonderful day … and it started with a spinning lesson.

Yup! A spinning lesson – the very first time I spun on a spinning wheel. My lesson was at 9:00 – 10:00 am. and I loved it. The spinning wheel I learned on was an Ashford Traveller, which is what the yarn store sells.

And plain and simple, I loved it! (the spinning not the wheel) Turns out I’ve been doing a good job at drafting and I was pleased to find that out. The biggest problem I had was getting the wheel the spin in the right direction. I also made a bunch of beginner mistakes … such as the single getting too thin and breaking and I had to use the orifice hook to pull it through … the wheel began to spin the wrong way and the single got tangle and I had to untangle it.

Another cool part of the lesson was the fiber I’d brought to spin. I had believed it to be a dye experiment gone wrong. But I’d also read in one of my books that sometimes an ‘ugly’ roving/top can make pretty yarn, so that was the fiber I chose just to see. Although it had been ‘top’ when I dyed it, it more felt like roving when I spun it. (Later, when some ladies saw it, it got some Ooohs & Aahhs. That definitely was a good feeling.) It was also fun when, at moments, my teacher got distracted by how the fiber was spinning up.

One thing surprised me about spinning on a spinning. The one thing I was concerned about was that if I fell in love with spinning on a spinning wheel, it would take away from my love of spinning on spindle and I was pleased to discover that was not the case. If I am ever able to afford a spinning wheel, it will be like a totally separate kind of enjoyment than that of spinning on a spindle and I love the thought of that.

Now let me tell you about the fiber I spun. It was some Romney fiber that I dyed but never was really happy about it. It was a kinda of an experiment to see what would happen but I guess I had some expectations and didn’t like the way it came out and I actually thought it was kinda ugly. But I’d read recently that an ‘ugly’ roving or top could become lovely yarn.

Here is the hand-dyed fiber that I spun: (this actually got Oo’s & Aah’s from some ladies at the yarn store )

The energized singles that I spun in my spinning wheel lesson:

Cool, yes?