Toe in the water

I secretly opened the spinning wheel last week. Honestly, I don't know why I'm so scared of that thing - it makes the most beautiful rhythmic sound as I treadle, and the wheel is mesmerizing when it moves. Maybe it has something to do with... oh, I don't know... the fact that it

EATS every fiber I let near it???

It's me, I know.  I just don't know what I'm doing yet. But the fact remains that any fiber I put on that wheel twists beyond recognition or limps onto the bobbin completely unspun, alternating between the two at 5-15" intervals.  Learning to use a wheel is going to require sacrifice of good, easy-to-spin fiber while I figure it out.  I just have to accept that, plus the loss of some of the luscious fiber I've been shoring up against the day when I am capable of making achingly pretty handspun.

I was able to open the spinning wheel because I found this:

I like the colours, there's not enough to miss from the stash when I mess it up, and it was meant as needlefelting fiber to which purpose it can return no matter what damage I do it.  Perfect.


I got out my copy of The Intentional Spinner and the DVD at the back of Judith MacKenzie McCuin spinning and plying (she is even more awesome than Helena told me incidentally, plus: no new-agey music in the background! - I'm definitely getting her other stuff), saw some things I was doing wrong, turned back to the living room and with a deep breath, opened the wheel -

- and discovered this:

Suuuuper short fibers on the needlefelty stuff.  Go figure.  Where I could get it to spin at all, I got this:

So, you know.  Back to the drawing board, or in this case the fiber stash.  It's sad, but it's gotta be Twisted fiber.  And the one that won the lottery?

Wish it luck.