Ta Da!

A friend of mine from Weaving class came over for her second spinning lesson yesterday morning. Last time she learned the basics on a drop spindle and then had a go at my wheel. This time she'd borrowed a wheel from the Guild and was ready to go. Here she is with her first skein of hand-spun yarn:

"Flushed with success!" is the expression that comes to mind. I think I was nearly as pleased as she was. I love to teach and she picked it up so quickly.

Technicalities: The wheel is a sweet little Alice upright, double band drive. The fleece is a Romney-Border Leicester-English Leicester cross from Lucinvale in South Australia. She's spun it in the grease. In fact, I encouraged her to spin straight from the fleece without even combing it first, since I believe that developing a rhythm of work is the key. After all, as spinners we spend the rest of our lives refining our technique, but that first day of, "look, I can spin!" is magic.