What a lovely way to pass a Saturday!

While at the Civil War Reenactment, I met several ladies who are members of the Fresno Weavers and Spinners Guild and they invited me to their November meeting. I, of course, had to take them up on the invitation and so this past Saturday, I hied myself off to the Clovis Senior Center to meet up with the Spinners and Weavers. One lady was generous enough to loan me her spinning wheel
and I turned her lovely orange roving into lovely "one-of-a-kind" yarn (translation: although everyone at the meeting who saw my product said that I was doing very well for a first time spinner, I could see that it was slubby and very much over twisted.)

But like any beginner mastering (slaughtering?) a new skill, I was very pleased with the results and it was fun to have all of the other spinners giving me tips on hand positioning, foot action, tension, etc. because each of them has been spinning for as long as I've been alive and so I had access to extreme amounts of expertise. From the bobbin (pictured above) of one ply wool yarn, I then was able to create a fantastically unique two ply yarn

I now am the oh so proud owner of a very small ball of handspun wool (an amount appropriate to knit a thumb warmer for a hitch-hiking runaway) and a craving for my own spinning wheel...and wool...and someday maybe a sheep! There was one fellow at the spinners meeting who is an engineer and he has been spinning for over 40 years. He explained to us all about the way to measure the angle of spin and angle of ply and had a weight and everything so that we would be able to reproduce the uber-consistent yarn that you can purchase at a store. After seeing my finished prouduct, I could only laugh and dream of the day that I am good enough to spin consistently.