My friend Bettie Sue is accomplished at many crafts, like honeysuckle baskets, recycled candles, flower arranging, just to name a few. But when I brought up spinning to her, she just rolled her eyes at me and insisted she could never do it like I do. But I had faith in her!
Many years ago she took a weekend course in spinning, and brought home an Ashford Traveler spinning wheel, books, and....sheep! But that weekend is where her spinning began and ended.
Fortunately, with just a little bit of coaxing from me, she agreed to try again. She said she remembered nothing from her first adventure in spinning, so it was start from scratch....
Being that I am fairly new to spinning myself, and I really want to teach others to spin, I had to figure the best way to go about it. Well, remembering recently how I felt when I started, I figured it best for her to start just treadling...and treadling...and treadling...I even gave her some stuff to read so her foot would learn to work independently and she then could concentrate on the fiber in her hands.
She had initially started out on her own wheel, which is still in need of more oiling of everything...and was much harder to treadle than my wheel...so...the second day she treadled on my Timbertops wheel...she was in heaven since it spins like a dream...easy and smooth...
The fiber I had her use is an unknown sheep wool that I had washed, hand carded and pre-drafted into little balls. I personally think that drafting should come after you learn to feel the twist coming from the wheel...so she started to learn to feel the twist come up to her fingers and feed the fiber onto the bobbin as it gently pulled from her hands. Of course there was much overtwist, as to be expected, my own experience was exactly the same, so I completely understood and patiently helped her along...
After a while, I let her alone and went off to do something else so she could concentrate without having to listen to me, as it does seem overwhelming in the beginning as all of the components of spinning come together...
I was within earshot and hear "Kim, I think I'm spinning"...I wasn't surprised and I told her so...I knew she could do it, I had believed in her from the beginning...all she needed was a desire to learn and a little patience...
I completely expect her next spinning session to be wonderful...she is full of excitement because she now knows that she can do it, just like I kept telling her...
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| Moving right along... |
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| She finally felt like she was getting the hang of it... |
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| Just whirling along... |
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| Until she had this...a full bobbin of yarn... |
She was so happy about it, proud that she could do it...I am proud of her too....
