A Curious Statistical Anomaly

Well, it was a gallant try but I didn’t make it. I had two goals:

1. Spin every day
2. Spin up one pound of green variegated top

I spent most of one evening getting the wheel set up and ready to spin. Had several problems getting the tension right. I managed to spin up a full bobbin and then navajo ply it. It came out really nice. I put pictures in a previous post — but here it is again.

But, I fell down on the spin everyday goal. I missed three days while at Readercon and another when I got home. I guess I’m just getting a bit old for those late nights and early morning combos — especially the ones where they expect you to think when you get up in the morning.

Then I was back in the spinning rhythm when all of a sudden the bobbin had no pull at all. Everything spun and turned and twisted and nothing pulled in and if I loosed my grip nothing happened. After a lot of googlng and printing the Schacht pamphlet the light dawned. The drive string had stretched and even though the tension knob was a tight as I could get it nothing worked. So, it was cut the string. Retie the string. And then I spent what seemed like hours trying to get the tension right again. It’s still a bit wonky because I was so used to it before it changed but I’m now spinning okay again.

Alas, the tour has ended and I barely spun up 8 ounces of the original pound of top. So, no yellow for me. No, red either because I feel that I didn’t really give it my best effort. I let things pull me away that didn’t need to but just to keep me from feeling just how out of practice and rusty I’d become. So, maybe next year I’ll do better.

I do know that I’ll be reorganizing some of my priorities to spin more. I found that when I was in the groove, spinning became a way to just pause my brain and let the creative thing/open side of my brain work unfettered. It helped me deal with migraine pain when I was trying to reduce pain medication. It was also freeing to get back to doing something that I’d forgotten just how much I loved. Somehow, I hope over this coming year to make spinning and knitting share my creative time.

Since I really have some plans to jump full force into writing for a while that spinning/knitting brain space where your mind just coasts and dreams could become very valuable and if it doesn’t happen the restfulness I feel after a half-hour of spinning will be a welcome respite in a chaotic household.