Update! Update!

Ok.. I have lots to cover. This week has been nutso!

First... spinning.

I went to class on Thursday and sat down at a Louet S51DT. It looks like this:



At class, I did pretty well. Here was my first single, that the instructor had ply onto itself.


Not pretty, but I knew that this would be a process. I knew that this would not be something that I could just sit down and do easily. It makes me think of a potter's wheel, which is odd because I've never used a potter's wheel, but the idea works. The first thing you make on a potter's wheel is mostly crappy, but as you learn, you improve. So it seems that spinning will also be this kind of process.

At class I did pretty well. Near the end of class, the fiber wouldn't feed into the bobbin anymore and the teacher said, "Oh, you just need to play with the tension."

"Ok," I thought. "I can do that at home."

I got home and the girls were waiting up for me, as was DH. They wanted to see me spin. I sat down and tried and tried, but the damn thing wouldn't work. "How come it's not working?" DH asked. He's lucky to have complete use of all of his body parts after that comment. If I knew why it wasn't working I could make it work. After 45 minutes, after sending the girls to bed, and almost breaking down into tears at least 5,000 times. I got it to work. Not well, but it did draw in the fiber. It was ugly, but I was spinning at home. By myself.

Friday night I came home and moved the wheel to my kitchen vinyl flooring instead of the living room carpeting. I played with the tension a little bit and Wowee! I was spinnning. Pretty well, if I do say so myself. The yarn was thick, but it was spun. After the first round of bleacher butt watching my youngest daughter do her pompon routine at the halftime varsity basketball game, I went home and spun some more.

This morning we were up with the sun and off to the oldest daughter's BBall game. They won 48 to 8 and played very well... next week the tournaments start. We came home, ate quick and washed dishes quick and I showed them how to spin. They got it pretty easily. Sometimes I really hate how easily kids learn things! How come our old brain cells can't do that?

Well, I'm now trying to find an Internet site that will show me how to ply so that I can try it. It sounds fairly simple in theory, but so did spinning! YIKES!

The mittens were coming along slowly and now all work has ceased until I get the spinning bug settled down some. Here is my progress:

I know, it's not even blocked yet. Can you sense their feeling of dejection?

This afternoon we were at the youngest daughter's swim meet. She was nervous, but completed every event without having to be pried from my hip. She did pretty well, took 3rd or 4th in almost every race. WooHoo!

Tomorrow? Shopping. Then home to spin some more!