Just like cotton candy...

Walter: Oh, Peter! If you're going out, could you bring me back some cotton candy?

Peter: Cotton candy.

Walter: Yep. Blue, not pink! I've had a craving. Must be the hyacinths...lovely blue flowers...

Fringe, Episode 6, "The Cure"

Surprising how many things I seem to be able to relate back to Fringe in some way these days...

Doesn't it just remind you of cotton candy? It did me, especially when it was all rolled up in its clear plastic baggie. And soft...sooooo soft. It's a 3 oz. batt of The Sanguine Gryphon's merino/superwash merino/silk roving, colorway Earl of Doncaster, which I really think should be renamed Walter's Cotton Candy, though I don't think TSG has done a line named after Fringe characters and their gastronomical idiosyncrasies. Yet. Heck, she could get a whole line just from Walter and the things he missed eating and drinking while in the asylum for 17 years. But I digress.

Though my yarn diet is technically over, I'm trying really hard to not buy new yarn right now. But fiber for spinning? That's different. Yeah. We rationalize like that here. :::sigh::: (And by "we" I mean "I".)

I've been trying for over a year to learn to spin with a drop spindle, and I'm very not good at it. In fact, my spinning skills leave much to be desired. At first I blamed the spindle, which my father-in-law made for me. It was quite weighty and it did more dropping than spinning. So he made a second one for me. A little better, but then that just highlighted how bad I was at this art form. Then I thought it was the roving I'd originally purchased. I knew nothing about roving, so I bought some inexpensive stuff that I figured would make do. I read books. I watched video clips.

Finally, I went to a class on drop spindling. The class served dual purposes of letting me see someone actually spin in person (which I hadn't had the opportunity to do before) and it basically confirmed for me that I did indeed understand the basics of the process. So, what I was lacking was simply practice and repetition. That is apparently the important factor of learning to spin...duh. (It is also the important factor in learning to do push-ups and developing stamina at jumping rope, both activities I've been doing of late and which are part of a larger story that deserves its own post. So, another time.)

So, I came to the conclusion that it was just time I needed to put in with my spindles. Fine. But that hasn't stopped me from playing with different fibers to see if they spin any easier than others. And let's face it...I'm a self-confessed color addict, so buying roving for the sake of its beautiful colors is reward unto itself. I also recently purchased these...

Another from The Sanguine Gryphon, Blue Faced Leicester, colorway Fire in the Evening (which matches my bedspread rather nicely)...and...

...this one, from Briar Rose Fibers, also BFL (sorry, I can't remember the colorway number, and it is upstairs and I am downstairs and lazy at the moment). Hm...also matches my bedspread nicely, no?

So now I have beautiful fibers to spin with...and no excuse to not keep at it. I will say, I am finding spinning with the batt to be much, much easier than with any roving I've used that comes in the long, snakelike form (seriously, I need to learn the proper terminology for all this). The batt is so soft and basically pre-drafted already, which makes me very happy, because I never feel like I'm doing that drafting thing correctly. I often suspect I'm doing something so wrong that the spinning police, or in this case a representative from The Sanguine Gryphon, is going to show up at my door, take my spindles from me and tell me in a very authoritative voice, "Never, never do that to our fibers again! Ever!" and then I will be black-listed from any and all fiber-buying venues. I may even be banned from ever owning a sheep. I don't know.

I realize that spinning, like knitting or many other tasks, is something that everyone does slightly differently. There are the basics, but you have to come up with your own technique that works right for you. And basically, I am getting yarn from my efforts. Not very neat looking yarn, but yarn. So maybe the spinning police will just let me off with warning for now? I will keep practicing, I promise.