I made yarn! Wow.

What you see above is my very first yarn skein from this past weekend’s yarn-spinning class at The Urban Craft Center in Santa Monica. Yes, it looks like something made by a six year old, but I’m quite proud of it. That’s four hours worth of spindling, working the treadle, listening, learning, hunching over the spinning wheel with beads of sweat forming under my curls on my forehead, quietly cursing under my breath, pulling and tugging at wool.

I’m not going to lie—it’s probably one of the hardest crafts I’ve ever tried to learn. But I think this absolutely explains how fascinated I am by it. You’re basically taking wool from a sheep and twisting it into itself, either manually with a drop spindle or with the help of a spinning wheel, to make thread, so you can use the thread to create something else. You’re working with fiber in its raw form, and you get the chance to be a true artisan and craft something from start to finish. I don’t know about you, but THAT is pretty awesome.

I’m quite horrible at spinning my own yarn. I can’t quite make the threads thin enough so they look like they’re made for a giant, I manhandle the spindle and wield it like weapon and I end up with wool all over my clothes and even in my hair. But that all didn’t stop me from trying my hand at it several times, even after the class that night in front of the TV (while re-watching Transformers, because there’s nothing like cars coming to life to get you spinning!) I’d like to think that with any craft, I hope to get better each time I try my hand at it. I just try to always remember my teacher Ana’s words: “Just keep practicing!” And the best ones yet, to make myself feel better about my knotty yarn: “It’s not supposed to look like a machine made it!”

“Spinning class” in a city like Los Angeles usually means that aerobic, sweaty thing you do at the gym. So I’ve gotten the strangest looks from people when I said that I was busy on Sunday afternoon spinning–that is, learning how to make yarn. But I’ve also had people say they want to be with me at the end of the world, like during a nuclear fallout. In case we survive, I can spin my own thread to make clothes. That makes taking yarn-spinning class worth it, strange looks and all.

By the way, I want to LIVE in The Urban Craft Center. It’s a studio space/crafts store for crafters on the west side that has all the equipment, resources and classes for all your creative twitchings.

It even has a library full of art and craft books that you can thumb through while you’re working!

I love it so much I’ve signed up to learn this Coin-Stacked baby quilt in June, and hopefully will get the chance to ask my quilting teacher how to the best finish my own quilt.

I hope to pass some crafting tips and ideas that I learn to you. And some day do a post on how yarn is actually made on a drop spindle (my hands were too busy in class to take pictures!) And some day, make enough of my own yarn, craft a big, wooly scarf with it and live to tell the tale.

Learn more about all the wonderful classes at the Urban Craft Center on their website HERE.