Up until about six months ago, my focus on spinning was to get my yarn as even, smooth, and consistent as possible. Sometimes I would go for a sock weight, sometimes bulky, but mostly I aimed for the best worsted weight I could muster. After about 7 years of spinning, I found myself being less and less satisfied with the finished product. Not that there was anything wrong with it..but I began to feel like I was just “producing” yarn.

Then I started spinning art yarn, and while it’s a new path of discovery for me, I realized that I had gotten pretty good at technical skills but was confining myself to that box that equaled “the perfect yarn.” (PS. There us no such thing..!)

The ability to find joy in thick and thin and suddenly consider slubs as neat and random elements of texture lead me to the project posted above..my Mardi Gras scarf. Rules broken.

I also found that when spinning from one of my recent raw fleece projects, I could rely on my technical skills to keep the overall weight of the yarn even and enjoy the fact that slubs and bumps were incorporated in. The pic below is 3.7 ounces of what I’ll call “freshly spun” from the Dorset fleece I got a few weeks ago.

All in all, this little lesson reminded me that in life, work, and projects..if we focus to much on what we consider to be the “ideal” result, we might miss something amazing in the process.

Spin on!