I thought I would quickly share two of my favourite spinning books. Creative Spinning is a lovely book to read and look at. It talks you through the basics of spinning right up to spinning unusual yarns based upon a Design Focus. The photographs used for design focus in this book are beautiful, 'Sunset', 'Lapis Lazuli', 'Seedling' and 'Driftwood' to name but a few and the resulting 30 yarn projects are fascinating. It discusses colour, texture, techniques and a variety of fibres, even including Possum fur. I was Lucky enough to go to a WSD Guild workshop with Alison Daykin and it was really inspirational to see what could be achieved. I had already spun a Yarn using Daffodils as the design focus and after working in a group with Alison I went on to spin my first 'Beaded' Yarn. View Alison Daykin's Blog 'The Willington Weaver' here.
This is the second book and I could not recommend it enough. Lexi Boeger liberates spinning in a way I have not seen before. It freed me up as a novice spinner to appreciate anything goes, as long as I like it. Lexi spins some fantastic 'Art' yarns using materials including recycled paper, old wrappers and audio cassette tape. She uses yarn as a medium for personal expression. My favourite project from this book is 'Ghost Town Zombie Hat' the yarn includes washers, nuts, springs and skull beads. There is also a section called 'Crazy Carding' to assist you with creating wild 'Art' batts. Pluckyfluff is the home of Lexi's website. Youtube also has videos of Lexi's 'Extreme' spinning and yarn activities including:
Cement Mixer powered spindle
and this looks really fun to me!
Giant skein winding (winding 10.5 miles of yarn into a 'Giant Skein').
This Giant skein believed to be the largest in the world, is made from donated skeins of handspun yarn from fans and followers of Lexi's work.
