Linda Ligon's Blog

Tips in Motion

2010-03-03T17:32:00Z

What I love about spinning is the generosity of the process. Spinning is not like making TNT, where the steps and proportions have to be perfectly precise (or else), or like computer programming, where every step has to be in logical order. With spinning, you can improvise. You can problem-solve. You can have a three-way conversation with your wheel or spindle and your fiber. You can invent. Spinners are awfully good at inventing. I almost laughed the first time I heard Margaret Stove describe washing...(read more)

Popular Wheel Mechanics, The DVD

2010-02-17T16:50:00Z

I taught myself to spin in 1971. I didn't have a book. I'm not sure I'd ever even watched anybody spin on a wheel. I did have a 15-minute tutorial on using a drop spindle (emphasis on "drop"). My wheel was an old upright Swiss table wheel loaned to me by a friend. It still bore traces of the aqua paint she had stripped off it, and the red paint below that. Somehow I managed to make yarn eventually. I made quite a lot of yarn on that old wheel, actually. But I can't say I...(read more)

Knitting Traditions

2010-01-13T22:08:00Z

I'll never forget my first encounter with Richard Rutt's wonderful book, The History of Handknitting . I was attending the Frankfurt Book Fair for the first time, and was pretty overwhelmed by its vastness, variety, verbal hubbub (and my lack of German and stolen passport, but that's another story). The British publisher of Bishop Rutt's book gave me a set of unbound galleys. "Do you think you might want to publish this in North America?" he asked. Well, I took it back to...(read more)

How Big is Your Yarn? It Depends.

2009-12-02T19:31:00Z

Are you one of those spinners who wants everything to be precise? Who believes all yarn is either woolen or worsted, nothing in between? Who believes an inch is an inch, and that's the end of the story? Do not read further. I've just been reviewing a collection of articles Rita Buchanan wrote for Spin-Off fifteen or so years ago about measuring yarn. The conventional wisdom is that this is easy—just wrap your yarn on a 2-yard niddy noddy and count your wraps—voilà! Multiply...(read more)

Why Spinners Weave

2009-11-04T15:35:00Z

I'm sitting in Sara Lamb's class at SOAR 2009 in Sun River, Oregon. Outside, the aspens are golden, the sky is hazy blue, the pines are dripping rain from last night's shower. Inside, sixteen would-be weavers are sitting, transfixed. These women are all spinners. Most are knitters, too. One or two have a loom they bought or were given years ago, and they never quite figured out what to do with it. This is a spinning event—what are they doing in a weaving session? Well, they make...(read more)

Spinner's Questions? Ask Rita Buchanan

2009-10-21T18:42:00Z

My first question, when I was learning to spin many decades ago, was "why does this darn doorknob thingy keep dropping on the floor?" Well, that was a long time ago, and it really was a wooden doorknob on a dowel, and I was trying to spin grease fleece. Why indeed! Over the years, the questions became more interesting and less plaintive. And for several years in the mid-1990s, master spinner Rita Buchanan fielded a range of them, answering with depth, wisdom, and humor in Spin-Off magazine...(read more)

A New Spinning DVD is Born

2009-10-14T16:01:00Z

Picture this: Spinning diva Abby Franquemont, a woodshop, a couple of aluminum ladders for props, two rowdy kittens. Add: three video cameras, a bunch of lights, a sound system, some camera guys. Result? Drafting: The Long and Short of It , an hour of intense focus on choosing fiber, drafting fiber, spinning yarn. I learned a lot. Interweave doesn't have an actual video studio, at least not yet. So we've been making do. In this case, the set was my husband's workshop with all the power...(read more)

Rita Buchanan - a woman of parts

2009-09-02T14:27:00Z

I've known Rita Buchanan for many, many years, and she's always surprised me. There was the Peace Corps time working on water projects in Africa. The year in southwestern Colorado, growing and living off native plants. The acknowledgment in her splendid book, A Weaver's Garden , to her "tireless research assistant, Fred P. Boot" (who was, in fact, one of her fuzzy house slippers, and who no doubt saw her through authorship of A Dyer's Garden as well). More recently, after...(read more)

Every Day's a Holiday!

2009-08-19T14:21:00Z

Or: why spinners need their own special calendar Old hippies have their own special calendar (so they can find out on what day "A Whiter Shade of Pale" hit the top of the charts). Mathematicians have their own calendar (in case they need a reminder to celebrate Pi Day—3.14). Well, we spinners deserve one, too. We need to be getting ready for Roc Day (or Rock Day), and for St. Blaise Day (when it is suggested that anyone who spins should have her spindle set on fire). We need to know...(read more)

Guatemalan Woven Wealth

2009-08-05T14:06:00Z

When I was in Guatemala last January, I had the good luck to travel with a group of women from Friendship Bridge . This is a microlending organization that supports the business endeavors of Guatemalan women, many of whom are weavers. The object the group was to visit local markets and small villages and buy up a lot of textiles for a trunk show which will be held in Denver this September 10-11 . My object was to watch and, well, shop a little. Oh, boy! You can hardly imagine the mountains of one...(read more)

Meanwhile, back in Guatemala . . .

2009-06-18T18:55:00Z

I can hardly believe it’s been four months since I was there. But I’ve had that trip on my mind a lot, and for good reason. Spin-Off is planning to publish a wall calendar for 2010, photography is happening today, and a beautiful supported spindle with handspun natural brown cotton on it is one of the photo props in the photograph for July. I bought the spindle from Doña Matea Alonzo, whom you see here, in the small village of San Jorge la Laguna. I also took a little video of...(read more)

Spinimation—The Maggie and Eunny Show

2009-06-03T14:50:00Z

I’ve rattled on for years about how hard it is to put spinning instruction in print. It’s such a dynamic, process-intensive craft—so hard to capture in one-shot increments. For all my carrying on, though, I think we’ve done a pretty good job. Thirty-two years of Spin-Off , and more books than I can even remember. And this printed material really has helped people learn to spin, either on a spindle or on a spinning wheel, and improve their skills. One of the best of the books...(read more)

All About Fiber

2009-05-27T18:58:00Z

When we learned that 2009 was to be the United Nations’ Year of Natural Fiber , our first thought was, “Wow! What can we do that’s really special?” Our second thought was, “Wait a minute—we’re about natural fiber EVERY year! What’s special about that?” Our sister publication, Handwoven , found this to be a particular dilemma. While Handwoven sometimes uses regenerated fibers such as rayon or bamboo in its projects, petrochemical yarns almost never...(read more)

Heading To Peru

2009-04-29T15:00:00Z

The last time I was in Peru – last year, in fact – I saw a spinner in one of the villages, and I just can’t get her out of my mind. It was early morning in Chinchero, near Cusco. The streets were still empty and quiet, the roosters still crowing. Down the cobbled street came a young woman, jaunty in her voluminous skirts and petticoats and tilted hat, walking fast, almost skipping, smiling, and swinging her drop spindle as she made yarn by the furlong on her way to market. What...(read more)

Spinning Wheel Opinionator

2009-04-09T17:51:00Z

Spinners have waited for years (or longer) for one of his custom wheels. Spinners have cheered, cursed, marveled, or thrown up their hands at his vast knowledge and challenging teaching style. He has mentored one Spin-Off editor (Lee Raven) and many stellar contributors through the years. His Big Book of Spinning is considered either the Bible or the Bloviation of spinning literature. Alden Amos does not evoke lukewarm responses. Long before the Big Book hit print, though, there was the Little Book...(read more)