You're Doing What?

Spindles by ZebisisDesigns from Etsy

     When you spindle in public people look at you funny, and when they find out what you're doing, they wonder why the heck you are making yarn when you could just buy it. If you follow that school of thought, next comes "Why knit sweaters or socks or scarves when you could just buy them?" Well, then, why make model cars or airplanes? Why scrapbook? Why create anything? Why not just spend your life in front of the TV watching the home shopping network?! You know who you are!

    I started out on a simple top-whorl spindle that came with a small kit. Needless to say my first attempts were too embarrassing to post a picture of. I even threw those first skeins out, which goes directly against my
pack-rat inclinations (pillow stuffing? A pet bed?)

      I bring this spindle to work when we have meetings, to keep my mind from wondering. My boss tolerates it about as well as he tolerates my knitting during meetings, which is to say he puts up with it so long as it doesn't distract everyone (swearing when I drop the spindle is apparently a distraction).






And anyway, this is far too big to carry in to work for a 20 minute meeting, even though I could get SO much spun in that time! (It's a Kromski Prelude with a walnut finish, if you're curious)

     I do recognize the irony of choosing to make something by hand, with a lot of effort and difficulty, considering our fore-mothers spun and knitted out of absolute necessity. Machine-made acrylic yarn must have been akin to an answered prayer. Nonetheless, I think that my slubbiest, most under-spun effort is far superior to a tidy skein of machine-made acrylic from a chain store!