I have to admit now that my weeks involve mostly spinning, they sort of bleed into each other. I’m having a hard time differentiating them; I should have written this back in week seven. I’ll do my best to remember what I did, though my log does indicate I mostly spun.
I did start reading another book: Greek and Roman Dress From A to Z. It’s written in an encyclopedia format, though I’m reading it like any other book – starting at page one and going until I get to the last page. This is how I tend to read encyclopedias and I’ve done this since I was a child; I’m a bit odd, I know. It works for me, especially in this case, because I’m picking up terms I never knew about. This is very helpful when it comes to colors and dyes, which I’ll focus more on next quarter when I dye the yarn I’m currently spinning.
But mostly, I spun. It’s a nice escape from the rest of the world; I put on a podcast and spin for hours, taking breaks to eat and stretch my legs. It can be a little lonely, though. I can see how spinning was an activity that was done in groups, women grabbing their spindles, or later on in history their wheels, and socializing while doing a very necessary activity. Though, before the pandemic, I did have opportunities to spin with other people (of all genders these days!) but I never took advantage of those opportunities. In the end, I’m an introvert.
There’s a different feeling to spinning when I’m spinning for pleasure versus spinning for necessity. I’ve always spun because I enjoy it. Whatever I made was created on my own timeline and was technically something I could find somewhere else. This is not the case now. I am on a timeline and what I am creating is unique. Sure, I could buy fabric and with a sewing machine (and even then that’s not a necessary tool) easily make something resembling a chiton. But it wouldn’t be anywhere near the same. All of this somehow changes the way I feel when I spin. I sort of feel like my spinning wheel is a time machine.
