"The music of the spinning wheel will be as balm to your soul."
Mahatma Gandhi
Tour de Fleece started July 1. It is Ravelry's support/answer/spoof? for the Tour de France. As the group intro says, "they spin, we spin." So I spun last night. And the balm indeed sank deeply into my soul. First there is the fiber. In this case, I'm spinning pure angora, a soft grey. I dip my hand into a bag of foof with no other preparation than snipping it off the bunny, retrieve a small handful, and then fluff n muss it up just enough to separate the locks a little. Then I tease out a wee little bit, attach it and start spininng. The simple motions... reach in, fluff, treadle, feed in, reach in ... coupled with luscious texture just kind of massages the brain, that music whispers sweet nothings, and the brain lets go and soars. Nothing is impossible under the influence of spinning.
My goal is modest: spin for at least 15 minutes a day. Last night I spun for about an hour, a lazy spin but I added about half an ounce to the almost half full bobbin I talked about in my last post. Before I spun, I cleaned up and oiled 2 of my wheels, the sweet Norm Hall Saxony
pictured above and Sonata. I intended to use Sonata to spin a purple merino light grey angora batt I carded up earlier this week but after the oiling, I started to attach the drive band and ... oops... I
forgot, a dog took a bite out of the band a while back and I've never gotten a new one. So I followed the path of least resistance and returned to my pure angora bobbin. I'd like to get enough angora spun up to knit a shawl. I have a couple skeins already waiting but they've been waiting for a long time.
I don't listen to the music of the wheel often enough these days. Toddler granddaughter is a powerful distraction. But fibering, whether it's spinning, knitting, or felting, sings a peaceful song that counters the ugly so widespread these days. Our news headlines all too often rip our hearts apart or enflame anger. Even the simple joy of a sweet walk with the toddler around her quiet little neighborhood can suddenly jolt the adrenaline when a man is screaming obscenities to his crying child in his house or an aggressive dog running loose targets us. Returning home safe and again insulated is not enough. The soul seeks it's balm in order to go out and face whatever the new day brings. Things like Tour de Fleece remind me where my balm is.
