My new addiction is....

Spinning! Those who have known me for some time have heard me say that I would never spin my own yarn. As your mama says, "Never say never." Here's the product of last night's adventure.

And here is Dianna's:

I have to tell you it is too much fun. But let's start at the beginning with the arrival of the wheels. They come in a knocked down form, so I needed to put them together. Having never spun - and never paying any attention to wheels, it was quite intimidating to open the box and find:

And the instruction page was in several languages, so I downloaded the instructions from the web. After a few minutes, this is what it looked like:

Good thing I had read a bit about spinning so I knew the names of the parts. And 5 minutes later, this is what I had:

And 5 minutes later, this is the result:

The skein holders were a bit more of a challenge as I had to figure out how they attached to the wheel, and which way to put the bolts and nuts in. But finally success!

It wasn't as hard or complicated as I had imagined. The Louel wheels are so easy to operate. After just a few minutes of sitting in front of one, I had made some yarn! I used Merino and Silk sliver from Louet in the Glacial Green colour. Now I want to start dyeing my own sliver (pronounced sly - ver). see, I know some spinning terms too! Dianna came back today to spin some more. Her bobbin is full. Now we need to figure out how to put a new one on, and then ply the yarn.

Enough of the spinning love affair silliness...on to more important items. First, there will be two fashion show dates - Thursday November 26th from 7 - 9 pm, and Saturday November 28th from 2 - 5 pm.  The admission is free with donation for our food bank. Kertzer is providing us with the sample garments, and door prizes, we're providing the grab bags, refreshments and fun. I am looking for a couple of volunteers to model the knitwear. Please let me know if you'd like you 15 minutes of fame. The local paper is going to be covering the show, so you never know - you may be Canada's Next Top Model!

Tickets will be available on Tuesday in the shop. As I said, admission is free, just bring some food for the food bank on the day of the show. A basket will be at the door. Let's fill it with goodness. But, there are only 15 tickets for each show - 13 left for Thursday night, and 9 left for Saturday. Email me if you what day, and the number of tickets you would like, and I will reserve them for you.

Finally for all the Wednesday Knitter's - would you like to do a " Block or Two of the Month" afghan? Really it's 3 blocks of 14 different stitch patterns, then joined together to make a big comfy afghan. The project calls for 15 skeins of Paton's Decor. Here's how I thought we could work it so hubby's don't ask "Why did you buy more yarn?" I will order your preferred colour yarn and keep it here for you. Each week you need a new ball of yarn, you buy one. No adding to your stash, no questions to answer, and it will spread the cost of the afghan out over several months. If we start in November and do two patterns per month, by June we will have a completed afghan. Of course, you are free to work as many blocks as you want each block. Breaking it down to just knitting a skein or two of yarn each month allows us to knit the other things we want to. I 'll have the pattern books here for you to see on Wednesday.

Book Club is meeting here on Tuesday morning, and I'm heading off to Toronto tomorrow (to pick up more Marble yarn at Kertzer), so I'd better get this lesson room cleaned up. Have a great weekend.