Part the Second, or, "Ghetto Grass"

Thanks, Gretchen, for the subtitle for today's blog post. :)

Well, it's a grey, gloomy, chilly day here in Chi-town. Much like the Saturday I went for my second day at the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival (seemless transition, no?). I so meant to post this a while ago, but I got caught up in the actual Spinning and Making of Things, so I never did. Hence, a post that sums up the last week and a half - let's hope that blogspot lets me put all my pics up!

So I made it to the Festival on time, although I wandered around for a few minutes trying to figure out which was the east store and which was the west store. Stupid Cardinal Directions. What's with that up here? Why does everyone in Chicago insist on using them? I'm still not sure which was which, but I looked for and finally found something that seemed to be a class. I was, of course, the last one there. (Incidentally, I was apparently the youngest, too, which seemed strange. I thought there would be more of us thirty-somethings. Something to consider, however, is that I appear - and act - much younger than I am. There could have been some younger ladies who were just more mature :P)

The wheels were provided by Babe's Fiber Garden. More on that later. Suffice to say, it's where the "Ghetto" from today's subtitle came from. I had high hopes for this class. I understood the idea of fiber drafting into the twist because of the drop spindle. What I didn't get was how the spinning wheel made that happen. Luckily, these wheels are just about the simplest things ever. It was almost immediately clear to me that pushing the treadle (think: gas peddle made from plywood) made the big wheel turn. The plastic-y tubing connected to the big wheel made the little wheel turn. The little wheel made the fiber twisty. My hands let the fiber get twisty and turn into yarn. That, my dears, is wheel spinning in a nutshell. Easy, right?

Ha!

So, for the first half hour, I suffered from Idiot Foot Syndrome. To save my life I couldn't get the wheel to turn in the right direction for more than 3 seconds. I was trying to get it to turn clockwise, and it basically went back and forth clockwise-counter-clockwise-counter-clockwise-counter-clockwise-counter...ad infinitum. Well, ad tempore media. (I don't speak Latin. I don't even know if that's right. I do know that those are related in some way to the words that "time" and "middle" or "half" come from. What I'm trying to say here is that I went back and forth for a half an hour doing No Spinning Whatsoever.)

Anyway, suddenly, I got it. Magically, I got it. I was spinning. Yes, it was ugly, but it was happening. And - can I brag because I was always the girl who ruined the curve in school and the need to be the best in a class has never changed for me? - I was the best newbie spinner. Sure, that will bite me in the butt later, when I think I know what I'm doing and I don't, but for a few brief hours, I was a spinning prodigy.

My first yarn:

Yeah, I'm a little more proud than I should be. Now, I realize that this is either the worst yarn I'll ever spin, or it resembles very expensive novelty yarn. Actually, it's a bit of both. I promise, I got better. But the first skein - that's always a big deal. I don't think I'll ever knit it.

The class I was in looked like this (the instructor, Lisa Hurst, is the lady in the tie dye shirt):

I've been trying, for the last half hour, to post a picture that had me circled in it. Instead, you can find it here, the last picture in the right column (although I took the class in the morning, not the afternoon). I am the one wearing the white long sleeved shirt with the ponytail, right behind the instructor's butt.

I was super jazzed, and I putzed around trying to decide if I would buy a wheel. Wheels tend into the hundreds, even thousands of dollars. We really aren't there, financially. Did you notice the wheels in the pictures? Did you notice that they are a little wierd? They are. I got one.

Oh yeah. That's PVC pipe. That's plywood. The little black bits are velcro. It's functional, but not entirely historically accurate. It was, however, HUNDREDS of dollars cheaper than a real spinning wheel. And, quite frankly, I'm getting the hang of it. I would rather get the hang of it on something like this than waste money on a real wheel only to find out that I'm no good at it or I don't like it.

The guy who makes these, "Babe" of Babe's Fiber Garden, reminded me so much of my grandpa (Papa). I could totally see him sitting at home, bored, retired, looking at his wife's spinning wheel, turning it around to see how it worked, and saying - I can make one of those, and it won't cost a thousand dollars.

I'll be honest. After I bought it, I was a little embarassed carrying it around. I took it straight to my car. When I got back to the shops, though, I walked around and bought stupid amounts of roving. Hey - I'm not going to get any better if I don't practice! As soon as I got home, I pulled the Plastic Monstrosity out and showed Gene what I learned. He has always been nice about my knitting (he doesn't understand the thought and complexity, I don't think), but this time I brought home a machine. A Machine for Yarn. He was interested in this. And he was very excited about the fact that I can make my own yarn. And now, he is waiting for a pair of socks made with Emma hair.

Dog fur, by the way, is too warm for people and too slippery to stay together, according to Stephania. I'll blend it with a wool so that Gene's feet don't catch on fire when he's snowboarding. I'm actually thinking about the design - he is either going to be the strangest looking boy on the mountain, or he is going to be the most fashion forward. Regardless, he will be warm.

Speaking of Gene (and explaining the "Grass" part of the subtitle), look what I came home to after my spinning epiphany:

He calls it his "Grassterpiece". He said I wasn't the only creative person in the house. I believed him before he turned our backyard into a chessboard.

Ciao!