Spindlers June Challenge

The Spindlers group on Ravelry has a monthly challenge, and I am participating in it for the first time in June. The rules are to start & complete a spindle-spun skein of yarn in that month that fits the challenge theme in however you want to interpret it. The skein can be any length, weight, color, fiber – whatever you decide to use to create your vision of the theme.

The June theme is “It’s Elementary,” and the challenge is to spin yarn that represents one of the elements… earth, fire, water, air, etc., or however you want to interpret the theme. I immediately began daydreaming about elemental colors. When I thought “Fire,” I pictured a glowing bonfire in the fire bowl in our backyard, so maybe that could be black fiber mixed with shades of charcoal and ash with slashes of yellow and orange. We recently planted our vegetable & herb garden, so “Earth” made me think of a mix of dark browns with hints of bright seedling green peeking through the browns. And after drawing a blank on Air, I easily thought of “Water” as waves of dark and pale blues that sparkled in the light.

As luck would have it, I took Jen Cuff’s “Custom Fibers” class at the Textile Center (http://www.textilecentermn.org/) in March, where I learned how to dye & blend white wool roving into my own custom batts. I created this batt of turquoise and navy blues with a little turquoise firestar thrown in for glittery fun:



I decided this would be the perfect fiber to interpret “Water,” and got to work over the weekend spinning the yarn using my cherry wood top-whorl spindle. The spindle is made locally by The Dragonfly Workshop in Bloomington, MN, and it’s become one of my favorites. I had about 1 ounce of my custom fiber, and I’ve spun about half of it so far: