Yarn Along - Spinning Beginnings

Knittin and reading. My favourite things to complete a perfect day. So I am joining Ginny on Wednesdays for Yarn Along to share my passions with you. Come and join in if you like!

In German there is a funny homonym for the word spinning because "Ich spinne" (I am spinning) can also mean "I am nuts". My dad never stopped to tease my mum with her spinning abilities and he is very delighted that I have now joined the club (both my sisters know how to spin also, so all his family is nuts now...). 

Aaaah, what a fantastic feeling to make your own yarn. The possibilities are just endless (after a few days of practice of course and with the right fiber).

If you get your wool straight from the sheep, like my mum did, there is a lot of work like washing and carding involved in the process until you can actually start spinning. I was fortunate enough that my mum had already prepared enough wool for me so I could get the wheel going soon.

Because my mum and me are not the most constructive teacher-student match, I had ordered for this very great book on spinning and additionally watched some very helpful videos on You Tube (in German) It all together has been very successful:

The first bobbing I filled was full of overtwisted and fluffy parts, an unintended thick-and-thin thread but I it was love on first sight :-) Once dyed and turned into a ball it looked some more serious and less curly and even knittable...

I dyed it in a deep blue. I plied it (twist it with another yarn) with some very thin yarn my sister had spun earlier, dyed in a green-blue

I only had one skein so I decided to knit it up into a small basket from "More last minute knitted gifts".

Oh, all that dying... (we used chemical dyes this time as we didn't have all the ingredients for natural colors)

We also dyed some of the wool before spinning (the purple in the top picture). 

Today Aaron and me arrived back home in Cologne, after 10 days at my parents place. A suitcase full of handspun goodness, a few skeins still ready to be dyed into any given color. Now my search begins for my own spinning wheel... oh how I want that right now...

Aaron never left his daddys arm again after the reunion at the train station, it was the longest time they had ever been seperated and as soon as we got home all three of us cuddled up on the sofa for the rest of the evening...

Happy Knitting!