Purely Whimsical

At the fiber retreat, I bought this really fun and funky merino that had the colors of rainbow sorbet: orange, lime, and hot pink. When I showed it to my friends, they gave me an extremely hard time about how horrible and ugly it was. For at least 5 minutes, they just wouldn’t let up, saying how terrible it looked, and what bad taste I had for buying it and why did I waste $10 on it, how stupid could I be. And so on.

Honestly, it pissed me off. I tried to tell them I thought it was fun, and that they needed to stop, to leave it alone… but no. I don’t often lose my temper anymore, I just roll with the punches, but eventually I blew up. I mean, they both were flat out attacking me, they wouldn’t let up. I thought it would be something fun and they were attacking my taste, my common sense, and mocking me. It hurt my feelings.

I honestly don’t remember what happened when I blew up, other than I snapped something about leaving me the fuck alone, then I threw the bag of fiber against the wall.

Later one of my friends told me I’m scary when I’m angry. I get that a lot. I’m scared of myself when I lose my temper.

So I decided that they weren’t going to ruin my enjoyment of the fiber, and yesterday I started spinning it. Here’s a pic of the fiber. Sorry, it’s apparently so bright that my camera can’t take sharp pictures of it.

I decide to make a fun and funky novelty yarn using the wrapped yarn technique, spinning the merino around a core of cotton. A picture of what this looks like is here (front page of the magazine). I have plans on plying the yarn with thread strung with beads.

I have no idea what I’d use it with, but I’m really enjoying producing the yarn, and that’s what spinning is about.

There’s some people out there who try to spin the ‘perfect’ yarn. Basically they’re replicating something that could be made from a machine. I don’t subscribe to that philosophy - it’s like trying to paint something that looks like a photograph. What’s the point? I don’t like trying to imitate something that machines can do, I like to have fun and mix things up. You can get a machine to make the perfect balanced and smooth yarn. It’s nice when it happens when you do it by hand, but I don’t think that should be my only goal. I think experimentation is an important part of the creative process, and that means occasionally going outside your boundaries.

For me when I’m spinning that’s spinning things like orange fiber, neon colors, and attempting new techniques. And I’ll keep doing it. I’ve been thinking of making a novelty yarn using recycled silk, and someday I’ll get around to it. I’m sure I’ll have fun.