There has been some spinning. My guild has a smaller group that meets every now and again called The Explorer’s Club. These spinners together decide on what type of wool and then spin it for their next meeting where they discuss the properties of the fleece, what fiber prep method they found most useful and what type of spinning method yields the best results. The Explorer’s Club is great for expanding your knowledge of sheep breed, the different fiber types, staple length etc. and how this all effects the spinning experience.

Unless of course you take my approach which goes something like this.

shit. is Explorer’s on Tuesday?
shit.
I better do something then.
where did I put that stuff? what is it again?
finding stuff
~insert general historical musings~ would you look at that, ‘Southdown Babydoll’ I wonder if that’s where the name of the town (town by me) came from?
well, I’m not washing this. I’ll just do the cleaned stuff.
crap. this isn’t going well. it’s spinning for shit. I suppose I should have checked staple length etc. ahead of time.
I should definitely spin it onto a bunch of different bobbins so I can try different plying methods. Maybe that will help.
f*&! all bobbins are filled with other stuff.
that’s it. everything is getting navajoed.

Navajo plying is a very cool thing. I love Navajo plying. It has lots of useful aspects. Plus it looks really cool when you’re doing it. It cannot however, take your crappy, last minute, unprepped spinning and turn it into something that looks good. There is no dross into gold here.

The ‘yarn’ that was the result is for shit. Really, I should be embarrassed to even show it at the meeting tonight. When they ask me if I used the woolen or worsted method, instead of trying to remember what the hell that even means, I will have to confess to the lazy arse approach. In more genteel circles, this is referred to as the Last Minute Method. or maybe I’m confusing it with the “Pull Out” method! ha! truly, this is the spinning equivalent and has the same level of guaranteed results.

But what is the stuff in the picture? The stuff that actually looks not so bad? When I realized how out of control and behind my spinning had become, I took the time to get a bit organized and clear off some fiber that had been stagnating on the bobbins. I also felt the need to redeem myself as a spinner and have something that looked halfway decent. That is 180 yards of two-ply Coopworth in the Autumn colorway bought from The SpeepShed at Rhinebeck.