The first yarn-spinning of spring

In case you're wondering, the best time for spinning yarn outside is on a holiday Monday, ideally in the early morning when everybody else is sleeping in or still away at their cottages.

(Of course it goes without saying that such a holiday Monday should not occur in the depths of winter, unless you have some pretty dramatic source of outdoor heat.)

Maybe it's different where you live, in which case, can I come visit?  But here in Toronto, living alongside a bus route in a neighbourhood where the houses are under constant construction, and the trees need frequent maintenance by chainsaw, and an awful lot of landscaping is done professionally with leafblowers instead of a rake, and the dogs are consistently freaked out by raccoons and the presence of other dogs, it's kinda noisy a lot of the time.

On a holiday Monday though, you can hear the birds.

I forgot that on Victoria Day.  I'd spent the day before hosing down the porch floor and bringing out the summer chairs, and when I brought the wheel out on Monday morning I assumed I'd listen to my audiobook and spin just like I had inside all winter.  But then I thought twice.

Birds - that's what I listened to.  Birds, and the soft rustle of leaves, and the sound of the wheel thunking and whirring away.

Okay, it has to be said - I'm kind of tired of these colours now.  I spun the other three lumps of fiber in the horrible winter that was, and I guess I still associate them with it, because I started spinning with thoughts of Other Fiber in my conscious mind.

Still, in such a lovely setting, it's hard not to notice the magical contrast between a soft pillow of sheep's hair and the rigid lines of spun wool.

It's hard to believe these are essentially the same substance, with nothing more than energy added.

And with nothing more than energy and a little time - maybe 90 minutes' worth, because I was spinning a bit finer than I usually do - I was done.

What a great feeling: clean porch, and the last of the singles done.  It doesn't get much better than that.

And now I get to ply.  Maybe even this weekend, though I'll have to make a pretty early start on Sunday to get the same quiet of a blissful holiday Monday.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend yourself, and I'll see you here again next week!