Like many people, I find that as I grow older the outlines of relationships I had with my parents seem to change. My mom wasn’t the easiest person. I’m impatient, but she surpassed me significantly in that department, particularly when it came to fiber arts. I think she spent exactly 3 minutes trying to teach me to spin before announcing that I didn’t seem to have the aptitude. This was based on the fact that the first time someone put a spindle in her hand, she began spinning like a professional. She absolutely had the aptitude.
Me with my family at my mom’s 90th birthday party in 2014.
It has become clear to me as I’ve been knitting a sweater with my hand spun yarn, that I might not have enough. My initial plan was to use the 2020, 12 Days of Christmas from Inglenook Fibers — 12 small batches of wool roving mixed with sari silk and glittery fibers, and 2 braids. I spun all of small batches on spindles, and the two coordinating braids on my wheel. I’ve been plying with a variety of singles from my stash to extend the amount of yarn, but still think I’m not going to have enough.
I’ve also been working back and forth; spinning, plying, finishing and then knitting. Each little ball has to be divided so that it appears in both fronts and the back, with a little left for the sleeves. Here are a few of the small balls.
When she died almost 6 years ago, mom left me a loom, boxes of roving and yarn she had spun, her wheel and various spindles. The loom was passed on to my good friend Suzanne, but I wanted to at least give spinning another try. It took a while to get to the point that I could make something resembling yarn (I kept hearing that thing about aptitude in the back of my mind). Then I came across a ball of yarn in a bag with two partial braids of roving and fell in love. To my eye, it was perfect; something to strive for, and I put it away with the thought that “someday,” maybe I could spin the rest of the roving and make something wonderful, using mom’s ball of yarn and spinning new ones myself.
I was recently reminded of my mom’s partially finished project, and pulled it out again to see if it might fit into my sweater’s color scheme (one thing that Mom and I always agreed on was color — greens, blues, purples and reds). Her ball of yarn was almost a worsted weight, so it won’t work for the sweater (my yarn varies between Sport and DK after plying). I started spinning the two braids and discovered that I could absolutely produce a yarn that would blend in with that I’ve already spun.
I’ve overcome whatever was holding me back from spinning this fiber — the sense that I didn’t have the skills. Yes, my yarns are thick and thin, but so are hers. It appears, looking back, that we have more in common than color choice.
The ball is my mom’s spinning; my two-ply from the same fiber is the small skein.
I don’t want to give you the idea that my Mom and I were always at odds. For a start, I truly admired her skill as a weaver and spinner. Her weavings are all over my house, and I’m particularly fond of the kitchen towels she made for me. My entire family has enough of those to pass down to the next 3 generations.
Near the end of her life we had a good talk about “difficult people” (of which she was not alone, ah hem). We agreed that as much as we could set each other off, we very much loved and admired each other.
At the end of that conversation I had to make a solemn promise that if she didn’t live to the 2016 election, I’d vote for Hillary (no problem there!). She really wanted to see a woman president in her lifetime. I would have been so happy if that had worked out for her.
In a sense, spinning the fleece she left me is making sure that lovely materials don’t go to waste. It’s also a tribute to my mom for grounding my life in fiber and fabric. She taught me to knit (that’s a story for another day), to sew, to weave, and ultimately to spin. While she wasn’t my spinning teacher, she was sitting on my shoulder to correct my mistakes and point out where I’d done well. My sweater will have much more meaning because she’s a part of it.
Meanwhile….
I finally found someone to work with me on inputting corrections into the Knit (Spin) Sweden manuscript to ready it for the 2nd edition. As it turns out, my niece, Lesley (in the photo at the top of the page) with a fashion design background, has experience with the book layout program InDesign. Her real career is in music (both producing and performing), so it’s not surprising that many of her events have been cancelled due to Covid and she has time for do this for me. Pretty exciting! The publisher for the Swedish edition has bowed out, so I’m back to working on that again. I’m also trying to figure out whether to self-publish version 2 (English with corrections). We shall see.
Soup of the day: Nigella Lawson’s cauliflower with roasted garlic and turmeric, served with dark pumpernickel bread fresh out of the oven.