Chocolatea is a specialty shop from heaven if you happen to like tea - they have more than 140 choices. Or if you like chocolate, or coffee, or fancy desserts. It's fairly new in town, so the curiosity factor brought out many of the K-i-P knitters. There aren't a whole lot of non-yarn shop knit-in-publics during evening hours, and since evening hours tend to be slow in many cafes, it's a perfect place to plunk down and enjoy a few hours of gabby knitting.
Or, in my case, spinning.
What's spinning, you ask? It's not the bicycle kind of spinning. This kind of spinning is what you do when you want to turn fleece into yarn. Some people do it with a spinning wheel, but some like to use a drop spindle - it's much more portable.
Shannon, of SpinSanity on Etsy, had joined us at Chocolatea, and brought some of her drop spindles. After watching her for a few moments, I asked if she would show me how. She had me spinning in under five minutes!
>>> I'm sorta getting it . . . but have a long, long way to go before this stuff looks like yarn! (photo by Karen Lason) >>>
Ummmm . . . well, maybe I should describe it as "attempted" spinning. But I had fun learning, so Shannon loaned me a spindle and gave me some wool to play with. I'm still messing with it, but now I have my very own customized spindle from Shannon. Shannon makes them to order, and also has ready-to-go spindles that can be ordered from her Etsy shop. They're all finely painted, signed and dated, and she carefully hand finishes each one. She'll even toss in a bit of fiber with your order to get you started.
She loves to make special spindles, and you can see some of them on her shop blog - spinsanityspindles.blogspot.com. Or, you can describe in an email to her what you'd like, and she'll give it a whirl (okay, so pun intended . . .)
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