making yarn

it's what I do. what about you?

Shall I begin with washed locks—

—or new yarn?

If I were showing things in order I’d start with raw wool, but I didn’t take any photos before I scoured this fleece so can’t share its crimpy, lanolin-laden loveliness.

I can, however, offer you drum carder love¹ and a radiant spindle.²

For these are the photos I have—and between the pictures I took and the comics I’ve drawn you might think I’d done³ nothing this week but turn wool into yarn—

—card locks into batts—

— twist batts into singles—

—ply singles into balanced yarn⁴—

—and knit said yarn into shirts.

That—and read about all those things. And maybe they are all I’ve done. To judge by the evidence they were certainly the things that held my attention. But then again (as you might have noticed), string-centric things generally are.

Someone might think that by this time I should have had enough of this yarn-twisting lark—in all its forms.⁵ That I should have moved on, raised the bar, broadened my horizons (or one of those euphamisms for doing something other than what you love doing). But the thing is— well—the thing is that wool feels like home. And a home you can rely on and enjoy (and maintain), is a home to be treasured.⁶

But if wool is home (asks Beryl, ever ready to make me grapple with tricky underlying questions), what of the other fibers you can’t seem to do without—that you choose again and again and again: milkweed and coffee filters? What about them?

For a moment or two I had nothing to say. Beryl’s ideas often leave me speechless—though I could easily have replied that those things are newer, that i’m still getting to know them. Except that’s not what I said, or thought, for suddenly and with no preparation, out of my mouth came two ideas I’d never before articulated—at least not so clearly and decisively:

Coffee filters remind me that I’m an artist.

And milkweed reminds me that I’m human.⁷

Well! Now that’s interesting to know. Of course I’ve no idea if any of those statements are completely true (no category is exclusive), but they were enlightening—useful to remember when I get caught up in life/world worries, or start to wonder why I can’t stick with just one fiber or technique. And certainly helpful when making decisions about what to make or focus on next—or more truthfully, in understanding why a certain material or technique has chosen me at a particular time. And what’s not to love about my brain (and clever dog), sharing a titbit or two from my inner workings?

Which makes me wonder about you. Does your dog (or cat or imaginary avatar), give you inner quizzes too? Do they make you grapple with the why’s and wherefore of your practice or suggest poll categories to guide you on your way?

If they don’t, or even if they do, or for no reason other than to satisfy (or further pique) my curiosity (and perhaps yours)—can we grapple a bit together— with a poll—or two—or three? I mean—why not? We might learn something, and what’s not to love about figuring out just a tiny bit more about who we all are?⁸

I’ve no idea what the point is here, but not everything has to have a purpose, does it? Though Beryl probably has a reason that she’s not telling me since she’s busy relishing a stick that just blew off the fir tree out my window.

The polls will stay open for a week (in case you need time to think deeply), and are open to all subscribers!

1. I bought this Patrick Green drum carder at Joseph’s Coat in Missoula Montana in 1984, and it thrills me to bits that both are still going strong. It’s a basic model (the drum carder that is), and though I’ve used it to card I can’t even imagine how many hundreds of pounds of fleece into batts, the only thing I’ve ever had to replace is the drive band.

2. This little 11 gram Jenkins Kuchulu cross arm spindle has been a wondrous travel companion for years and has spun many a mile of very fine yarn. I’m winding a basic over-two-under-one cop here (looks prettier on the bottom), but if you’re one for elegant winding techniques, check out the pictures on this page from the Jenkins website.

3. At least all I’ve drawn or photographed this week.

4. FYI- the bottom skein is the yarn from the wee cross arm spindle pictured earlier: 2 ply approximately 6,350 yards per pound.

5. It made me giggle to see I’d put my spindle down on the newest issue of Spin Off Magazine (which just happen to be all about spindles), and notice that it looked right at home resting on one of the adorable supported spindle cozies on the cover.

6. Because, in part, this ‘yarn-twisting-lark’ just keeps on giving and expanding and shifting in such compelling ways.

It was fun, for instance to re-read a blog post from 2015, My Tapestry Weft, in which I wrote about fleece love from the perspective of wool as tapestry weft. So interesting to notice my excitement about the changes I was then making, and now know about all the yumminess (and the then unimaginable shifts—cellulose fiber—OMG no), yet to come.

7. Milkweed as milkweed and milkweed as a category that includes nettle, dogbane, willow, dead leaves and other gathered bast and cellulose fibers. And Human—here I mean human as a minuscule link in the continual lineage of beings around the world who have been twisting fibers into string (of every kind imaginable), for more than 50,000 years—string, as my brilliant friend Rochelle reminds me, that in one way or another has probably been useful to every one of us, every day, for every one of those years.

And apropos of nothing at all except the cleverness of Rochelle, she also just taught me a thing about how The Gusset and Substack work, which is that if you hover your cursor over a footnote number as you read (on a computer), or touch a footnote number with your finger (on a phone or tablet), the footnote pops up in a little box! I had no idea and thought you were all reading these at the end the way I do with other people’s substacks like a second, picture-less and wordier essay that is tangentially related but also it’s own entirely other kind of beast. Wild! You probably knew this already in which case how silly to tell you something so obvious—except just now I’m truly more delighted than embarrassed and thrilled to share this technological titbit. Sometimes technology is ALMOST as versatile and satisfying as string.

8. I actually got a little bogged down refining the options here—I got too specific too quickly then ran out of options to offer (maximum 5 questions per poll), so then broadened them to be more inclusive. So if you find these questions/ choices somewhat limiting, feel free to expound in the comments. Or, indeed, suggest questions for further polls. Because— why not?