" Cassie wrote about the new spinners urge to save good stuff for later, when you are a better spinner, and how she didn't really get behind that theory a whole lot. I couldn't agree more.
While (clearly) I have no issues with hoarding lovely fibres (and clearly, neither does Cassie) until their day comes, I also think that there is a great deal to be said for learning to spin with the best materials you can afford.
Nobody needs to be hindered by things that are barely usable, and nobody needs to feel that they are a crappy spinner (or just more crappy than they actually are, since we all suck in the beginning and it is only the length of time that we are sucking for that is really variable among learners). Good fibre makes good yarn.
Good things inspire you. Good things get you to try harder. Good fibre actually helps you spin. Beautiful fibre gives you something to live up to.
Crap fibre depresses you, frustrates you and encourages you to give up and (in the less determined) could cause a fledgling spinner to wander off entirely, thinking that they obviously aren't meant for this...given that they keep turning out crap yarn. Even the best spinner is going to end up with crap yarn if you start with crap fibre, except at least they are going to know why they apparently suck so hard.
Luckily, there is a practice among spinners, an unspoken code of fibre giving. When a previously normal person gets sucked into the inevitable hole takes up spinning, it is common practice for every other spinner within earshot of the event to take a moment, scour the fibre stash and send a little bit of something wonderful off to inspire the intrepid newbie. Guilds do it, pressing delicious samples on the learner, clubs do it, and the internet does it with gusto, often inundating the newly pledged with bits and pieces of wonderful things, merino, silk, flax and cotton all show up on your doorstep, hand-dyed, plain, roving, sliver, bumps....it is all pressed into your grateful hands with only the lovely phrase "here, try this" to accompany it. The new spinner tries all these things, gets experience, and learns what they like and may invest in.
It's a wonderful expression of mentorship, and all that you are expected to do in return is to pass on something good..knowledge or fibre...when you have the chance. Brilliant.
Has anyone mentored you with a gift of fibre? "
I can't say that anyone ever has, although I don't actually know anyone else who spins. Actually, scratch that, my mother-in-law spins and she gave me her handspun for the green and cream blanket I knit. I'm sure she'd teach me to spin the way she does if I asked, but I think there's more I'd need to know. Things like spinning different fibres together, working on different weights, and learning how to ply in different ways (I'm fascinated by the idea of Navajo plying).
However, in other news, I got in touch with the Hand Weavers and Spinner's Guild of New South Wales this week, and they have forwarded the names and numbers of several spinners I could get in touch with near me for lessons. I'm moving slowly, but I'm moving. Progress!
It's a lovely grey drizzly day here today - I do hope it rains, we so desperately need it - and I thought I'd add some sunshine to this post, in the form of one of the cacti that co-inhabit my sunroom. This is Torston (I don't name all my plants, potted or otherwise; this one was named in honour of my best mate's twenty-first birthday... It's a long story!)
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