yarn.love. and a long story.

so you know.  crochet is my comfort craft.  well - it would go well with having yarn as my comfort.art supply.  which i think it is - lots of lovely skeins in all kinds of textures and colors... mmmgood.

i had an inkling.

looked up some local places that taught yarn spinning.  and found LoopyYarns to be the most affordable for my budget.

2 separate nights - four hours - spindles, spinning wheels, wool roving, fibers... mmmmgood.

drop spindle spinning.

my spindle yarn.

my spinning wheel in class at Loopy Yarns Chicago.

my yarn via the spinning wheel.  :)

and i have come to discover that i love spinning yarn.  now the spindle bit - i'm still getting used to - having to "park" it often and not so good at standing up and letting it just roll.  but they say it comes with practice.  now when i tried my hand at the spinning wheel - once you get it going and understand what is happening with the roving pulling out, etc... it seemed much easier for me than the spindle.  almost similar to hand sewing vs. sewing machine. :P ha.

now.  i am in the midst of a very messy studio.

it all started with the fact that our littlest one is four and a half now and really growing out of her toddler bed - so. we decided to move our boys' bunk bed to the girls' room and create new bunks for the boys and after doing some research HERE we were getting excited but it seemed would work better downstairs in the basement, we were thinking...

so.  in an attempt to bring my complete studio upstairs to our boys' room and then move them downstairs to my basement studio space - i got a little carried away and jumped the gun.  after having my complete studio stuff upstairs and overflowing into all of our living spaces (which is proof i have way too much stuff) we started assessing the basement space for our boys... it occurred to us a little late that it would be much more work to create the basement into their bedroom - plus the fact that we started researching Radon and its dangerous levels in basements !!!  ahh!!  (after testing - we have very low levels.)

so we moved the boys back into their original bedroom and regrouped our thinking!  and came up with this:

one bed suspended near the top, the other resting on a post.  voila!

now for my studio - it took me 3 days to move out of my basement studio.  but it took me a week to move it all back in!  and putting it all back together seems a bit trickier as i've also moved storage stuff out of a small closet room and turned that into a separate studio room as well.  so.  i am still at it!  it has been 2 weeks!

(below is a picture of my gpa's work bench - it's hereditary. i am not to blame. ha.)

my grandpa's work bench.

my loving hub jokes that i should sell all of my stuff to buy a spinning wheel - i laughed back.  but it is true.  i am really evaluating all that i have now and wondering what is it that i really want to do as an artist?  and so the thinking continues as i clean, organize, purge, and reevaluate the things that i really love and want to create in the future vs. the things i really don't use or need anymore.

meanwhile at the kitchen.table..... i am preparing for and co-hosting a ladies valentine embroidery/tea social at our church.  and it is keeping me sane.

these books are wonderful! HERE, HERE, and HERE

and just as a side-note, have you ever used Pixlr.com?  it is fabulous!!

(i believe this is the longest post i've ever written.)

till later ~

xo