Where magic lives

I should have at least one finished object to show you from my weekend away, but I don't.  

I knit a little on some socks.  I knit a little on the soft gray Bridgeport shawl, I knit a little on Clapotis.  There is an inch or two more on each.  While many others finished things, I sat plodding along as usual.  

There was a heap of spinning happening around me.  Such lovely fine yarns being spun and knit.  

Several of the ladies had wee tiny Turkish Spindles  and were spinning very fine yarns with some of the specialty fibres of the spinning world.  Camel has incredibly delicate soft fibre and there was incredibly delicate lace being made with it on the tiniest of turkish spindles.  Another had a wool and silk blend (I think) and again very very fine yarn with the tiniest spindles.  I admit, I am completely bowled over at watching these itty bitty bits of goodies being made.  When you take it down to the smallest size, spindling takes on a whole new delicacy and grace.

There was also a lady working with a supported spindle.  Its a slightly different techinique than a drop spindle and fascinating to watch.  

I love watching people work with spindles.  There is a grace and rhythm that flows through there whole bodies.  It flows from the tips of their fingers right down through the fibre as they draft and the elegant twists to load the newly created yarn on to the spindle shaft and ends up in the yarn.  Surely there is magic in spindle spun yarn.

The lady in the little spinning video from Monday has a mgic entirely her own.

She is perhaps, my favourite spinning story.  

As every knitter who becomes a spinner knows, they started looking because everybody else was.  My friend P, admits quite freely to just following along on a day trip to an interesting place.  But while most of us use what we learn in spinning to inform and add to our understanding of knitting, P became a spinner.  She did not know she would.  She has knit all her life and loved it and thought it was home, but she took up spinning and magic happened.

When you watch her spin, you see a transformation.  Her face is suffused in joy.  Her sheer love for the simple task of spinning shines through. That joy surely goes into the heart of her yarn.

This one is for her.  She looks like this sounds when she spins.

 

Prelude no. 1, C major, BWV 846 (v03)