It’s taken about a year and a half to get this far;  six months to give myself permission to buy a wheel and another year of  spinning classes and practice to produce acceptable yarn.

One of the reasons I hesitated to start spinning was an unfounded fear that I would never produce yarn good enough for knitting as well as a bit of nervousness due to the relatively large investment I had to make before having much opportunity to find out whether I would stick with it.

For some folks it might be odd to hear that I  want my hand spun to look just as good as any commercial yarn, but that’s me. With any craft I do, I have this odd need to make my items as perfect as possible. I guess it come from a desire to show others that in this age of mass produced junk, that hand crafted items can be of much better quality and value than run-of-the-mill stuff  purchased at the mall.

So now that I’ve done lots of spinning and have finally started knitting with my handspun yarn, I’m so thrilled that I did eventually dive into this craft. I don’t know if other spinners/knitters feel this way, but I’m finding that knitting takes on a whole other dimension when using handspun yarn.

By the way, in a few of weeks I’ll be attending the Northwest Reginal Spinners’ Association conference . I was lucky to get all my first choices for classes – the ones taught by Rita Buchanan.  As I’ve collected back issues of Spin Off magazine, I’ve been finding her articles  the most informative for learning, so I feel lucky to actually get a chance to take two days worth of classes with her.