If you're listening to this podcast, you're probably already a spinner. But in this episode, I want to enlist you in the project of creating some new spinners. Specifically, this episode is for the knitters, crocheters, and weavers who are spinning curious, but who haven't yet taken the plunge. I'm going to talk about three ways that learning to spin in can make you a better knitter, crocheter, or weaver. Hello there, darling Sheepspotter. Welcome to episode 120 of the Sheepspot podcast.
I'm Sasha Torres, and I am very happy to be back after my month off. And I have the best job in the world, which is to help you make more yarns you love. And in this episode to help you maybe make a few new spinners you love as well. So I can very clearly remember telling Mr. Sheepspot in 2009 that I was not going to learn to spin. I was sitting on the daybed in my study and it was a summer day. I had just come back to knitting after a long knitting hiatus.
There were actually probably decades I didn't knit. And I was feeling really in love with knitting at that moment. And I was making the transition away from working with polymer clay as my main creative focus. And I was acutely aware of the the fact that I had an extremely well-stocked and equipped polymer clay studio, and all I wanted to do was knit. I did not need another hobby, I thought. I did not need another whole set of tools and supplies.
Well, as Taylor Swift would say, the angels were rolling their eyes at that very moment because they knew that they knew what I did not know. And that was that within a month, I was going to need some roving for a needle-felted detail on a knitting project.
Project and that in the search for that roving, I was going to stumble upon a spinner and fall completely head over heels in love with spinning, which yes, was indeed a whole other hobby that did come with a whole other set of tools and supplies. So I totally get it. I really do.
It can be hard to dive into a whole new thing that's going to involve a new learning curve and lots of new stuff, but I'm so glad that I did it for lots of reasons, but one of them being that I'm a much better knitter because I'm a spinner, whether I'm working with hand-spun yarn or not. Whatever you currently do with yarn, spinning will make you better at it. Here's why.
First, spinning will allow you to more deeply understand the whole process by which random bits of fluff ultimately become cloth. And it will do that by requiring you to learn about fiber and fiber preparation and drafting and plying. And in the process, you will come to understand the impact that these elements have on cloth. And you'll come to understand how to mix and match them to create just the cloth that you want.
Number two, learning to spin will forever change the way you look at yarn, whether it's hand-spun yarn or mill-spun. Spinning will teach you about the enormous diversity of kinds of yarn and the key differences between them. You'll understand the building blocks of yarn, things like fiber and ply structure and twist, and you'll be able to predict how they are going to interact in any particular yarn to determine the character of the cloth that you want to make.
So spinning makes you a yarn-choosing ninja. And number three, knowing how to spin will enable you to make intentional choices at every stage of making cloth. You can just select, you can select just the right fibers, preparation, drafting method, and ply structure to produce exactly the cloth that you need for your project.
All of these, having a holistic understanding of the process of making cloth, developing a deep knowledge of yarn and the ability to predict how it will perform when it's in use, and being able to make intentional choices about every element of your yarn and thus your your cloth, they all really boil down to one thing, and that is understanding and being able to manipulate the materials you're working with.
And whether you knit, crochet, or weave, that knowledge will make your creative life infinitely richer and will massively help you successfully realize your creative ambitions. So, dear Sheepspotter, will you do me a favor? Will you send this episode to a knitter, crocheter, or weaver in your life whom you suspect might be curious about spinning? Let's expand together the number of spinners in the world and help our non-spinning fiber friends understand what they're missing.
And I've deliberately kept this episode quite tight and short so that you can send it on to your knitting, crocheting, and weaving friends. They don't have to make a big investment of time, but maybe this will give them a little push in the direction of spinning. So, as always, there is a dedicated discussion thread in The Flock where you can comment on this episode and discuss it with me and with other listeners.
The link is in the show notes for this episode, which you will find right inside your podcast app. So just open up the description for this episode, click the link, and you'll be taken right to the thread. If you haven't joined The Flock, Sheepspot's free online community for inquisitive hand spinners, you absolutely should. You will get access to all of the freebies that I've ever created for the podcast.
As well as several self-guided spinning challenges, our weekly spinning check-ins every Friday, and a whole lot more. And to join us, just head over to theflock.sheepspot.com.
Mom darling sheep's butter that is it for me this time thank you so much for listening i will be back next week with an episode about the three most important things i didn't know when i started spinning uh but wish that i had known so you don't want to miss that and until then go spin something i promise it will do you good.