It all began when I quit my job at the local clinic last April.  Well actually I guess it all began in the winter of 2001 during the first evening of my beginner spinning classes with Maggie Casey at Shuttles, Spindles & Skeins in Boulder, Colorado.  On that night we learned to choose fiber, scour, tease, card and finally, to use our drop spindles.  Really, all in one evening.  We practiced all week and returned with some pretty good messes on our spindles.  Then we were introduced to the spinning wheel and over the next five weeks we tried them all out.  At the end of the classes I tossed my budget to the dragonforce winds of Boulder and bought a Schacht Matchless.  Bless my dad.  He helped me afford the Cadillac; it was my great fortune that he had worked with Barry Schacht prototyping some parts in the past and was delighted to help me buy one of his wheels.

I should have loved my drop spindle more in the beginning.  It is my nature to love the simplicity of form and function that makes even the crudest hand spindle pleasing.  But I was smitten with my Matchless, and probably more importantly, I could actually spin yarn with it.

Fast forward to April 2014 and I quit my day job here in Westcliffe to spend more time with my cashmere goats and the fiber.  I talked my brother, Bob, a woodworker, into making some beautiful drop spindles for me to sell along with my fiber and other goatie things at the farmer's market.  Thinking it would be a good thing if I could actually spin on the spindles if I wanted people to buy them, I plucked out the most beautiful one and started playing.  As Rita Buchanan wrote about her own experience in her 1995 article in Spin-Off magazine, "Drop Spindle Basics", those 13 years on the shelf did the spindle a lot of good.  I spun pretty good yarns with it, fast too.

I taught dozens of people to spin using drop spindles over the summer; mostly kids, who were at first disappointed that the spindle wasn't an interplanetary weapon, but lots of grown up folks too.   Turns out I'm a pretty good teacher.  We made spindles with old CDs and lengths of cheap pine dowel.  I think these rock for learning to spin; they are just the right weight and that big circumference keeps them spinning and spinning while the new spinner learns to love the draft triangle.

And me, I'm in love again.  My new love is an old Bulgarian spindle I got on ebay.  Did I mention my three dozen cashmere goats?  Cashmere demands a support spindle.  Rustic simplicity, form, function.  I.Am.Enraptured.  Newly challenged, enchanted, charmed, besotted, and smitten all over again I am.  Did I say obsessed? 

                                                                              It all starts with this.

Find love for someone you love in our shop, we send the spindle, a couple ounces of clean carded corriedale wool, and instructions.  What a great gift!

Watch a video.

Read a book.

Earlier this year I got a fairly distressed text message from my brother, Bob.  He was retiring, his last day of work was in two weeks, and then, he would have no value to the world!  I got it, retiring can be a really hard life transition, especially if you're managing other big changes at the same time.  I felt bad right along with him. But, I was secretly kinda happy.  Not schadenfreude, really.  It was that I wanted some of his spare time for my own interests.  See, my brother is a super woodworker.  He has a lathe.  I wanted things like drop spindles and yarn bowls to go along with my goaties' fabulous fibers.
Frankly, I started to nag.  I needed these things.  I sent him links to my favorite shopping spots, The Woolery, Etsy, Paradise Fibers.  I mailed my favorite spindle to him.  I mailed him pages torn from Spin Off magazine.  I even mailed him a bundle of fiber to spin.  He asked if I wanted him to start working on making his own sweater from scratch.  Not yet, first I want spindles.  And yarn bowls.
And finally, one day, he came for a visit.  He brought beautiful spindles!  

Wow, I bought the Spring 2014 Spin Off magazine yesterday.  I've always loved Spin Off and it's always beautiful, but you gotta love this issue especially; it's  all about color.  If you'd like to take a peek at it yourself you can find it here:  http://www.interweavestore.com/spinning-magazines-spin-off.

I was especially taken by the beautiful and complex colors of yarns created by blending many colors on the drum carder.  I guess I was already noticing this beautiful process as I watched a "batt contest" develop on facebook (and now that it's over I can't send you to it because I can no longer find it).

I am in the process of spinning up a bunch of Great Pyrenees hair from my guardian dog's grooming.  Pyr hair is super soft and a great addition to yarn.  I have been blending it with Corriedale, a sheep wool that has all the right ingredients for good yarn spinning, and nylon sparkle.  I have been dying the sparkle bright colors, grasshopper, sky blue and deep orchid.  The Pyr is white with a bit of grey and black, I have white and black Corriedale stash in abundance.  I also have on hand some Corriedale that is dyed sky blue, ready for an upcoming project involving silk noils, but that's a whole 'nother story.

So, after perusing the Spin Off magazine I decided my last batch of Pyr would be blended with black Corriedale, sky blue dyed Corriedale and deep orchid sparkle.  You can see it on the carder and in batts above.  Such fun!  I may never card another monotone batt, ever.  This batch is still on the spindles, I like to let the twist set overnight before plying into two ply yarn.  So far it's a loose, fat, colorful single.

Here's Shiva showing you where we're going with the spun chunky, sparkly, colorful Pyr yarn.  Funky crocheted hats for the farmers market.

It seems like I'm always spinning luxurious, fine yarns appropriate for the fabulous cashmere the goats give me, and then moving on to a larger project like a shawl to show it off.  It's really fun to make the chunky stuff and then crank out a cute and funky hat in under an hour. 

So tomorrow I'll ply today's colorful batts and crochet another hat for Shiva to cuddle with!  After that, I'm thinking cashmere, bamboo and silk in who knows how many colors.  It'll take a while.