Dear Spinning Circle,
Welcome to another year at Wool n’ Spinning! To those who are new here, welcome. To those returning, thank you for continuing to be here & participating. You all make the Wool n’ Spinning what it is today & I am filled with gratitude that you are all here!
I have had a bit of a whirlwind start to the year. My family came for New Years and we had a lovely week together. Because my family is very small – about 9 of us – it was lovely to be together. I was fighting a head cold all week but at this point, it didn’t turn into anything too noxious.
As soon as they headed home, though, my mom and I flew to Winnipeg so that I could be there to support her as she visited her sister. Unfortunately, she is not well and it was important to go to be there, even if for a short time, with her. She continues a long battle with a very aggressive cancer and I was happy to be able to support Mom through the trip, which we will probably have to repeat a few times this year.
Onto events happening this month around this amazing community! For those who haven’t been able to sync up with the Google Calendar, which is listed in this post & the #general channel of Slack, here is a synopsis of the month for you to enter in your calendars:
For those who can schedule repeating events in your digital calendar, here’s a way to help you keep track:
- Live Streams: 1st & 3rd Tuesday of the month @ 10am Pacific
- The Wool Circle: 2nd & 4th Tuesday of the month @ 10am Pacific
- Spin Group meet on Tuesdays @ 9am Pacific (may be changing to Mondays)
- Weaving Group & Fibre Prep Group alternate on Fridays @ 8am Pacific
- Europe & Australia Spin Group on Thursdays @ 8am GMT
For those in the Patreon Groups, the following dates & times are for those subscribers:
- Queries & Explorations on 2nd & 4th Saturday of the month @ 9am Pacific
- Spinning Staples on 2nd & 4th Wednesday of the month @ 12noon Pacific
For these two groups, there are private Slack channels (#queriesvirtualspingroup & #spinning-staples) for you to join if you are a part of these groups.
I hope this helps for those getting their feet wet for the first time and learning about the community and how to join in the fun!
Onwards …
Wool n’ Spinning Radio
This month, Rebecca and I sat down to chat about the year coming up – we did a deep dive into what to expect from our Spinner’s Book of Yarn Designs Book Study for the next two years. Rebecca speaks to the different ‘tracks’ available to everyone, depending on how you’d like to participate! This study is all about ‘leveling up’ our handspun yarns to create the yarns we are excited by!
Subscribe to Wool n’ Spinning Radio on all your podcast providers to stay up to date on the conversation! Click here to listen.
Do you want to be on Wool n’ Spinning Radio? Reach out and send Rachel a note – she’d love to hear from you!
The Wool Circle
Rebecca will continue to delve into the work she’s been doing by working through many of the topics discussed in Sarah Anderson’s The Spinner’s Book of Yarn Designs with everyone in 2024! The syllabus Rebecca created is here.
If you missed everything introduced at the turn of the year about our 2-year book study, check out these videos:
We are currently working through Part I: Back to Basics. Rebecca talked on the first episode of The Wool Circle this year about balance and twist. She discussed excercises to help everyone truly understand twist & twist direction. The episode is here.
Spinning Purls
We jumped in right away with our Book Study in Spinning Purls, covering spinning for consistency this month!
- Spinning for Consistency
- Twists per Inch (coming soon!)
- Diving Deeper into TPI & Plying (coming soon!)
Next month, we will be delving into Default Yarn and breaking out of spinning our default yarn as Rebecca further discusses this on The Wool Circle!
What I’m reading here.
Housekeeping
Indexes to Keep Up With All the Things:
- Recent Tutorial on how to use Ravelry & Slack – I hope these help!
- The Wool Circle
- Wool n’ Spinning Radio
- Spinning Purls & How I Spin
- Slack channel and Ravelry
- Useful Links here – click pin on the post to keep it at the top of your feed!
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- For a softcover copy of How I Spin: A Sock Study, check here & e-book link here
- For softcover copies of Unbraided: The Art & Science of Spinning Colour, check here
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If there is anything missing that you’d like to see in our Housekeeping post, please let me know!
Warmly,
Rachel
P.S. What is Ketchup & Pickles, anyway? It came from my son, James, actually! He told me it is a chance to ‘catch-up’ and play (pickles).
