birthday week: indian food + spinning

thursday december 8

food: indian buffet

got take out from a really good indian buffet called karma, right next to where i ate the other day - han dynasty. the buffet was $10 and i loaded as much as i could in my container, had left overs for today. soooo good, very pleased :)

craft: spinning!

after loosing my drop spindle for two years my boyfriend gave me a new bottom whorl drop spindle for my birthday (ain't he the best? :) happily, i spent most of the night spinning skeins of roving that i had lying around for a number of years and glad to get back to them finally. i plan on doing a post of how to spin soon!

such a beautiful dye job. i bought this from a seller on etsy years ago and sadly can't remember them. oh well, isn't it lovely though?! it reminds me of a peacock.

also i wanted to share this really cool website/blog about iceland, it's called every single place in iceland. they do posts on somewhere in iceland each day, whether its a major area or the small lake in reykjavik. amazing photography and cute posts. i have to say, iceland is doing a teriffic job with tourism advertising this year. it goes to show the importance of social media these days... i only wish i knew about this blog before i went! check it out!

(from the blog, which is brand-spanking new... this is tjornin, the small lake in the center of reykjavik. there really are soo many birds there, it's insane but cool)

weave away

 hand spun and naturally dyed with cochineal, safflower + weld, and indigo

 final double weave in progress

views of the weaving studio with sarah, kara, and rachel working hard at their looms

Spin Span Spun

If you have seen my newest post on Spindlejoy, you will have noticed that I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival yesterday. It was a great time and a great opportunity to buy some items that would be expensive and hard to find elsewhere.

I have really taken a liking to spinning, I find it very meditative and relaxing, and I feel very fulfilled when I weave with it. It makes me feel like I am contributing to every step of my working process, and I feel self-sufficient in a materialistic culture. I bought two books yesterday at the festival, one of which has really fascinated me; Spin Span Spun and Handspindles. Handspindles describes various types of spindles used throughout the world and throughout history, while also describing different types of spinning methods. Spin Span Spun is a book about spinning and weaving facts and folklore throughout different cultures across time and is incredibly fascinating. It is really humbling when you realize that spinning and weaving were everyday tasks for people in every culture for thousands of years, but now we have no connection to it, it is almost lost.

Here are just a few facts about spinning from the book:

"Yogis in India believed that a person's level of awareness was reflected in their reasons for spinning. The lowest level of awareness was spinning in order to sell the yarn, the next higher level was spinning in order to weave, next was spinning in order to give away the yarn, and the highest awareness was spinning as pure meditation."

"Asbestos is a mineral fiber which does not burn. It has been used by handspinners or at least a dozen centuries...A table owned by Emperor Charlemagne in the eighth century was made of asbestos. After dinner Charlemagne would amaze his guests by throwing the cloth into the fire to clean it. After the stains were burned off, he would return the clean white cloth to the table."

"Some Indians in the highlands of Peru attribute supernatural powers to alpaca and say it is the only fiber from which magic or curative thread can be spun."

(the image above is of asbestos cloth)