Extreme Knitting Redhead: In a spin

Sunday, November 15, 2009

In a spin

Today was the day I chose to try out the drop spindle. I read the instructions thoroughly and it looked straightforward enough (remember that old adage "pride comes before a fall"?) so off I went. After several minutes of bad language and broken bits of fibre it occurred to me that I must be missing a piece of the jigsaw.

Thank goodness for Google which lead me to this clip. Megan made it look so easy! "Don't worry if your yarn breaks, it's easy to fix it", she said. "No it isn't!" I replied as I broke yet another chunk off the strand.

So back I went to the drop spindle and the actual spinning. The first 12" looked really good (Mike said it looked like real yarn!) but then it broke again and it all went downhill from there. It actually looks like one of those 'thick and thin' novelty yarns!

Back to the drawing board methinks!!!

3 comments:

Shan said...: Pretty sad when a little bit of wool and a simple little child's plaything can bring a grown woman to tears, eh? I remember how embarrassed I was when I read that little girls of 3 or 4 were taught to spindle, and by the age of 6 or 7 they were fully involved in textile production for the family. "Er.....well done, them."; November 16, 2009 at 5:12:00 PM PST
Susie Hewer said...: Precocious brats!!!!!; November 17, 2009 at 1:34:00 AM PST
Nellie from Beyond My Garden said...: Don't fret too much.It might be the spindle. I've used several different drop spindles. 2 were very difficult and the other worked great after a couple tries. Each was borrowed and I do not remember what type they were, but if you are really interested, try another style.; November 19, 2009 at 6:31:00 AM PST

Post a Comment

Mum's Story

In 1997 my mother, then aged 81, had a series of minor strokes. Shortly after that we started to notice behavioural changes notably memory loss and confusion over everyday items. We thought it was just old age finally catching up with her. Then she started wandering and had violent mood swings. Although she already lived with us it became obvious that she couldn't be left alone for long and so I left my job to care for her. The next few years saw a gradual decline into the blackness that is 'vascular dementia'. My normally placid mum became violent and aggressive. She had psychotic incidents where she would see imaginary people (children hiding in her wardrobe, Russians sitting on the stairs, women stealing her clothes) and she would shout at them and sometimes throw things too. She was so convincing that we used to go and check that there wasn't anyone there! When my sister died mum did not know who Judy was or that she was her daughter. There came a point when I suddenly realised she no longer knew that I was her daughter and this was a terrible time for me. In the last 2 years that she lived with us, life for us all became almost unbearable as she needed 24 hour care - she couldn't be left alone at all because she would either wander off or hurt herself, she never slept for more than 30 minutes at a time during the night, she became incontinent and incapable of doing anything for herself. Finally my husband and I realised that we could no longer provide her with the care that she needed and she went to live in a special care home where the team did a splendid job caring for her in the last few months of her life. There she lived a zombified existence unaware of who she was, what she was or where she was. It was heartbreaking. She died in March 2005, the day after her 89th birthday.

Thank you for taking the time to read mum's story and I hope you'll dig deep and sponsor me using the link below to help find a way of beating this destructive disease.