Spinning 101

And who made this cute little ball of handspun? I did, I did! Like bookbinding and weaving, handspinning provides that little extra frisson of excitement, to be making something out of nothing.

Writing about Felt Club in the previous post reminded me that it was at a 2006 Felt Club event that I met Jamie Chan, whose handspinning tutorial appears in the recently published Issue #25 of ARTitude Zine. Jamie is the proprietrix of Mary Jane’s Attic, an online shop specializing in knitting, spinning and felting supplies. She is also the organizer of San Francisco’s Bazaar Bizarre (or is that Bizarre Bazaar?).

But it was at Felt Club that Jamie gracefully and efficiently taught me and twenty other hot, sweaty, cranky shoppers how to spin our first lumpy yards of yarn.

August in Los Angeles is not exactly the most pleasant weather to be working with wool, but we did our best and Jamie really excelled at explaining and demonstrating what to do, so naturally I coaxed her to share her expertise with the readers of ARTitude Zine. If you’ve ever wanted to learn how to spin wool into yarn, you must check out this issue -- unfortunately it isn't listed on our website yet (long story) but you can order it by emailing me.

For some reason I am totally into fiber arts lately, so watch this space for more fibery, fabricky, fluffy stuff!