Recruit them while they are young...

Sometimes, surprising things happen. Like for example when the ten-year old son of our friends takes to spinning yarn like a fish to water.

Yesterday, after we were all fed, D decided to show our friends how to spin on a drop spindle - with varying success. It didn't help that I had pre-drafted the roving very thinly and D wasn't used to that. Still, everyone had a go and much fun was had. The little seven-year old soon gave up and returned to playing on the playstation, but the ten-year old continued to struggle with the drop spindle long after we had all moved on to talk about other things and eventually he managed to produce some surprisingly even yarn! He then sidled up to me and started asking about the spinning wheel. I showed him and, when he appeared fascinated by the process, asked him if he wanted to try. And try he did.

I'm telling you, the child is a natural! I had to give the wheel a push in the right direction every now and then, but apart from that he was doing beautifully, treading and spinning, and feeding the yarn onto the bobbin. The resulting yarn was a little bit overspun but really not bad at all.

When it was time to leave he was asking me where he would be able to buy a spindle so he could continue practicing, so I let him pick one of ours and gave him a batch of roving to practice on. :)


Apart from this there are no news - no knitting, due to all the cooking, and cleaning, and socialising yesterday.

It also occurs to me that I did not get round to posting a Self Portrait Tuesday series yesterday. I don't think I will have time today either, so instead I think I might post another artifact on the Lost and Found series later.