The Winter's Tale (of Spinning)

The Winter's Tale is the last Shakespeare play I saw, in my very limited experience with (and knowledge of) Shakespeare. I was a groundling in London at the Globe Theatre 12 years ago. That meant standing for the performance down in front of the stage, but it was worth it - and affordable!

My winter's tale of spinning, or part of it, includes two local fleeces. The light grey is the last roving from a Romney flock in Beaver Valley, east of here. It has a lovely lustre and was gorgeous to spin. The dark brown is from the Wenger's sheep on Fox Mountain quite nearby my studio. I loved working with these fibres; I know both producers and the relationship I have with each is part of the very fulfilling experience for me.

Both yarns are two-ply, meaning that I spun two separate yarns and plied them together in the opposite direction to the spun direction of twist. The two strands want to do this anyway. I find two-ply more stable in finished cloth and it's worth all the time. I figure I spent about 40-50 hours to spin and finish each of these two projects.

Local fibres woven into blankets are growing in popularity. The last blanket I sold with local handspun Icelandic wool generated interest from the skeins when a studio visitor spied them. And that's where the blanket went!