Through Thick and Thin

This past Sunday I took a spinning class from Jeannine Bakriges at Webs. She taught ten of us how to make thick, thin, and medium yarn, along with teaching us lots of other spinning-related tidbits, and I loved it! The samples above are two- and three-ply yarns I spun last night, just practicing what I learned. I still need to be more consistent - that photo is of the best sections of my various attempts - but that'll come, that'll come. Jenny did tell me that, for a beginner, I was pretty consistent, so that made my day!

Today, however, I'm home with a tummy ache and the mindlessness that comes with not falling asleep till 3 AM. I know there was much more I wanted to say about Jenny's class (I got to meet Etherknitter!), but it's disappeared into my general grogginess.

I do want to say this, though: Every so often, I run into someone like Jenny - the Yarn Harlot and Amy Singer also come to mind - who just exude such competence and joy and creativity that I am left panting after them like a teeny bopper after the latest rock star. I want to be Jenny's groupie.

There, I've said it. Well, almost said it. What I really want is to take that soul-baring plunge into being my own fount of competence and joy and creativity. To knit and spin well enough to express who I am through those media. I have some ideas in my head, but I hold myself back. Like any learning process, though, I need to go through those early stumbles and those first 10,000 mistakes and the imitative creations, through to me. Whoever I am.

But for today, I think I'll just go nap.