Sticks and Hair

It's amazing what one can do with three sticks and some hair.  I've discovered the magic of spinning fiber into yarn, and it only takes sticks and hair to do it.  Admittedly, the sticks are finely made, and the hair has been prepard so that it *will* spin.  But still.  It's totally fun and magic.  

And a bit mysterious and irritating.  The principle is simple:  adding twist to fibers makes them grab each other.  When they grab each other, you get strong yarn that doesn't let go of itself.   Here you see my first yarn spun on my brand new Aegean spindle that is a copy of a spindle bought in a Greek market about 15 years ago by the man who made this one.  It truly spins like a dream.   The bluish fiber is a mixture of 60% Merino wool and 40% Bamboo.  Cool, huh?

Kinky.  Hairy.  Just like I like it.Down here is the first wool that I spun last night from this beautiful creamy-white roving.  I think I'm in love with yet another hand craft.  My husband merely sighs.

I also knit, another thing you can do with hair and two sticks.  My late grandmother, my dad's mom, learned to knit and to crochet when her sisters died with said projects unfinished.  She learned so that she could finish their work.  I've got crochet on my radar for sometime this winter, too.

Taking up the spindle feels to me like completing unfinished ancestral work.  That's one reason I bought the spindle with the Anglo-Saxon runes.  They are:  Wunjo, "Joy", Ear, "Earth", and Kalc, "Chalice".  

Make a beautiful, big container for all of your joy here on Earth.