Yarn Along- Spinning up a Storm.

A long time dream of mine has been to make myself  a garment from homespun. I started spinning around 10 years ago on a wheel made by my dad.

 He built it as a challenge not entirely sure that it would actually spin. It won first place at the local show and I took on the delightful job of testing it's spinning capabilities. I was very pleased to be able to tell dad that yes indeed it did spin. I spun enough yarn to make a pair of booties. But it became increasingly difficult to get the wheel to spin consistently and in the end it would  not draw in at all. A case of balance I was told. It would appear that the wheel would continually become unbalanced and not spin. I was devestated with the idea that the wheel wouldn't spin and  I became a little disenchanted with the whole thing.

In the mean time I was gifted a fleece and of course it reignited my interest, so Mark took on the task of finding me a wheel on ebay. He found a beautiful Ashford spinning wheel. At that time we had Mark's daughter and family living with us and his daughter commented on the fact that she was waiting for an item on ebay to finish. And I said ''Funny so is your father''. You guessed it they were bidding against each other on the same wheel.What a hoot.

Anyway I got myself a new hardly ever used wheel.

I still wasn't very confident with spinning as my dad's wheel wasn't easy to use so I put off spinning for over a year. Last month after seeing this shawl over at soulemamas I was inspired to dust of that spinning wheel and get on with it and here's the result. 

And once I got started, well I just couldn't be stopped. I saw  this vest that Lori made and just loved it and thought some homespun would do for that. I liked the stripe that Lori added so I too added some stripes of blue (cause I do like blue) with yarn from my stash.

I'm just a little pleased with myself. I've managed to card the fleece, spin it into yarn and then knit it into garments. The vest is a little big but it will be fine over other clothing in winter. I'm still trying to get the guage right. Of course I should have done a tension square and didn't in my eagerness to get cracking.  And with all that busyness I have managed a little reading. the shorter days get us inside earlier, with dinner that little bit earlier there's more time in the evenings for some extra knitting and reading.

 At the moment I'm reading "Edge of The Sacred - Transformation in Australia"  by David J Tacey.  

''The cure for our ecologically disastrous abuse of the earth and our culturally debilitating racism is the spiritual renewal of consciousness.''
 

I have only read a couple of chapters but it resonates beautifully with me. How can we care about the earth and any of it's inhabitants until we have revised our sense of identity to include the natural world.
Tacey talks about how our tough macho Australian image is a defence aginst the harsh unfamiliar conditions that faced early white settlers. We have carried this image with us ever since. He talks about the sacredness of the outback and the mythic bond that exists between this land and its indigenous inhabitants. He talks about recovering the sacred in Australia. A very thought provoking read.

Looking forward to seeing more yarns over at Ginny's