Fun with Spinning!

I had a good time with the spinning guild yesterday. I was nervous but it was very mellow. There were six of us there including me, and we sat around and spun and talked for 3 hours. My hands were tired but I enjoyed myself. I learned how to Navajo ply, though I'll need to practice a lot before I like how mine looks, of course. Some people were spinning on spindles, and otherwise on wheels. My wheel is light enough to carry, and fits easily in my little car. It felt a little weird walking up to a stranger's house carrying my spinning wheel, but I got over it. :)

I haven't checked these out yet, but one of the guild members (the host for the day) recommended spinningbunny.com and zenstring.com as great fiber sources. She brought out her (considerable) stash and showed us several rovings from each vendor, and they were very pretty colorways. I'm going now to look at what they have for sale. ... (An hour of web surfing goes by) ... Okay, I didn't see anything I had to have yet, but I have high hopes based on what our hostess showed me at the spin-in.

One tip I did receive yesterday was about dyeing rather than about spinning - up to now I've been mixing dyes on a per-batch basis from powder form, but it was suggested to me that I mix up a large quantity of powder into liquid for each basic color (red, blue, yellow, brown, black) and then use small amounts of the liquid to dye each time I want to do handpainting. This makes sense, as it's only when the dye is powdered that it's gnarly and scary and toxic (i.e., if you breathe it in), requiring a mask and other protective gear. So I'm going to try that this afternoon.

Update: Here are the liquid dyes I made up. You can see how the yellow separates out pretty easily.


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