First Post, First Skein

Welcome everyone to my first blog.

I've never blogged before so this should be interesting. The purpose of this blog is to document my experiments with spinning and dyeing. Feedback is definitely wanted and appreciated. I will show my successes and failures and hopefully as I gain skill in both subjects there will be much more of the former then the latter.So on with the main subject of this first post: my first skein.

Isn't lovely?! I'm so proud. So I guess a little bit of background first on how this lovely skein came to be would be a good idea. I have been wanting to learn to spin shortly after I first learnt to knit. I was trying to find the perfect yarn to go with a project I had in mind and I couldn't find it. It wasn't the right colour, the right texture or the right fiber. It was frustrating. I was searching the Internet for ideas and found this little gem of a site called Knitty.com. They have a section in their magazine on spinning and I thought "Wow, that is awesome." It opened my mind to so many options. If I learn this skill then I can make what ever I want. I won't be dependent on what I can find in the store. This is great.

So I started dreaming of learning to spin. I tried to read all articles I could find. Looked in the library for books. I read and I read and I didn't get it. I could kind of see how it would work but I realized that this is a skill at least for me that I would need someone to teach me. Unfortunately I don't know anyone that spins. So my dream was put on hold for awhile.

Fast forward a year and a half later. I was shoping for yarn for a christmas gift project at a new local knitting store and I overheard the owner talking to a customer about drop spindle classes and I thought "Ohhh, I want to do that class!!!" So when they were done their conversation and the customer left I went over and asked about the class. There was one starting up in a couple of weeks but with christmas comming up I couldn't justify spending the price of the class on myself.

Fast forward a couple of months later and I was doing errands near the knitting store and I thought I'll just go in and ask if they were going to be having that class again any time soon. Lo and behold they were planing on having one next weekend! I signed up on the spot. There were to be two classes for two hours each. The second class was last saturday and the picture above is the product of that class. It is very bulky/thin but I love it. The fiber was dyed by the teacher and it is a mixture of orange and pink. I'm not a fan of pink usually but I really like how this one turned out.

As part of the fee of the class I got another braid of undyed fiber to spin and I am looking forward to dyeing it. I just got some dye that I ordered yesturday in the mail so I will probably do my first experiment in dyeing tomorrow. I still need to get some equipment before I get started.

So that is all for my first post and first skein. I do have a question of anyone out there that spins and lives in Canada. Where can you get affordalble fiber to learn and practice on? I don't want to start on expensive/luxury fiber. If anyone knows of a good supplier of medium quality wool please let me know.