New books!

This last Tuesday, my family and I had to take a day trip to Seattle from the peninsula, and one of the great perks of day trips is that we get to go shopping. Our idea of shopping out of town doesn't often involve shopping for clothing but almost always involves stopping to shop for books.

This trip we stopped at a Barnes and Noble so my husband could pick up the latest book in The Dresden Files series (we've both come to love this series), which we haven't been able to find in any of the closer, local bookstores. We all came away from the store with new treasures. Here's what I ended up choosing...

I originally went into the store with the intention of picking up Cookie A.'s Sock Innovation, but after looking through several books that I've also had my eye on for a long time, I decided to add to my spinning library rather than my knitting. I have a lot of books on knitting (not as many as a lot of people but my collection is far from shabby) and have so far had only one lonely book on spinning- Essentials of Yarn Design for Handspinners by Mabel Ross.

So, instead of another knitting book, I picked out two on spinning: The Intentional Spinner by Judith MacKenzie McCuin and Respect the Spindle by Abby Franquemont.

A number of weeks back I had the opportunity to go to one of Judith's beginning spinner's classes. It was sort of like an introduction to spinning using drop spindles. I've never attended a spinning class like that before and I really enjoyed it. Judith is such a wealth of information (and a super-nice lady too). Up to this point I've worked a lot at developing skills for spinning the sort of sock yarns I like to knit with, but I hardly have any other spinning skills. I tend to go through slow times where I almost become bored with my spinning and I can't think of a better way to keep things fresh and interesting than learning and developing new skills to create yarns that are new and different. This book should (I hope) help me in this endeavor.

The other book, Respect the Spindle, is one that I've just really been wanting to be able to pick up and browse through since it came out. Even though the majority of my spinning time is dominated by my wheel(s), I still do enjoy spindling and I hope to get better at it. I have already started reading this book and am finding it very interesting.

It doesn't surprise me that the spinning books called to me the most. Although I haven't been spinning every day, I've still been averaging 4-6oz a week of fine singles for plied fingering weight yarns. I have more finished yarn (which I'm too lazy to share pictures of today) and a few bobbins spun which are still waiting to be plied. I'm getting ready for both the next ASU SAL which is just around the corner as well as the Tour de Fleece. I just need to pick out what I'll be spinning. Yay! -another opportunity to stash bust.