Elephant No. 2: Spinning Yarn

                            


This morning I drove out into the countryside to learn how to spin yarn. This is something I have never remotely attempted before. After being generously invited to try it a few weeks ago while chatting with a pro spinner, I figured it was worth a try. Beth made it look easy, so I had visions of coming away from this morning's session with a perhaps-not-perfect, but at least acceptable ball of yarn.

"Perhaps-not-perfect" is being kind. The people trying to show me how to use the ratchafratcha spinning wheel were also being kind when they said (for the two seconds that I had the hang of it) that I was a "natural".

My yarn, as you can see, is ridiculously curly and twists many times around itself. Kay, one of my very pleasant and patient instructors, said I should keep my little skein of pink yarn as a memento, because I'll never be able to achieve this effect again. One can only hope.

My ineptitude has nothing to do with the people teaching me. I think it was mostly that I made the spinning wheel go too fast, held onto my yarn too long, and basically lacked any kind of hand-foot-eye coordination. This is why I don't play sports. That being said, I was kind of hooked, and will definitely try to master spinning on a wheel. I guess I have to, because I need to spin a skein of single-ply yarn to bring to the session next month.

I also tried the drop spindle, which is a technique that has been used in all cultures for millennia. Women and girls often spin even while walking or riding animals. This is something at which I am a little more adept (the spindle part, not the walking and riding animals part), probably because there are no moving parts to contend with. This does not mean that I am actually good at it — I just suck a little less. From what I can gather, most people who use spinning wheels don't really like drop spindles, and vice-versa.



Although Kay, our host, no longer has sheep, there were sheep at the farm next door. Sheep farmers around here sell the raw fleece to a number of small local mills, where the fleece is washed, carded and sold either as carded batts or roving, or spun into yarn.

I wanted to photograph the sheep, but the resident guard llama did not take kindly to me. As soon as he saw my car stop on the opposite side of the road, he ran over and made himself as big and threatening as he could. Since I didn't go away immediately, the nearby guard donkey decided to take over, chasing off the guard llama and staring me down until I got back in my car and went away. I don't think I look or smell like a coyote (the main sheep menace in these parts), but maybe the llama and donkey just don't like anything new.

 

http://www.sheep101.info/famoussheep.html

Speaking of sheep, I recently read about a Merino sheep in New Zealand called Shrek, who managed to evade capture at shearing time for six years. When he was finally caught and sheared in 2004, his fleece weighed about sixty pounds (27 kilograms) — enough wool to make twenty men's suits. A normal Merino fleece weighs about ten pounds (4.5 kilograms).




And now for today's elephant. As I mentioned above, I was expecting to come away with yarn that was at least more or less a straight line, and thought I might "draw" an elephant with it. But since I'm stuck with this curly stuff, it's a little more blobby and a little less elegant than I envisioned. Essentially all I've done is arrange the yarn I spun on white card stock. I didn't want to cut, crochet, knit or knot it, so it's just laid flat — well, as flat as it would lie, anyway. Nothing is pinned or glued, and it had an irritating tendency to sproing and uncoil while I was trying to photograph it.

If I ever manage to make yarn that actually looks like yarn, you'll be the first to know.


Elephant Lore of the Day
Although elephants are technically considered hairless, they actually have hair over their entire bodies. Baby elephants are covered in a pelt of fine, downy hair, which is largely shed before birth. Adult elephant hair is coarse and wiry, making it useless for spinning, although it is sometimes used to make bracelets.


To Support Elephant Welfare
World Wildlife Fund
World Society for the Protection of Animals
Elephant sanctuaries (this Wikipedia list allows you to click through to information on a number of sanctuaries around the world)
Performing Animal Welfare Society

Elephant No. 1: Needle Felting

Inspired by a recent book by Noah Scalin on making something each day, I decided to give it a try. As my husband likes to joke, I have enough supplies, skills and equipment to restart civilization.

He's not far wrong, so it seemed like a good idea to see what I could concoct using available resources, while also developing new skills. Hence the idea of making one new thing a day, using a different technique, medium or material each time. Over the year, I'll be drawing on various artistic or craft practices I've already mastered (or at least tried), as well as things I haven't a clue how to do.

There may be times when I am unable to complete an entire project in a day, due to the technical requirements of certain materials, but I'm still expecting to post one new thing completed each day by occasionally working in stages behind the scenes. Along the way, I'm sure I'll be relying on some very kind and patient souls; hopefully I'll be able to return the favour once in a while by reviving interest in practices that may be in danger of dying out.

As for the idea of making elephants, I've liked elephants since I was quite young. Better, obviously, to spend a year making something I like, or this could get mighty tiresome, mighty fast. I also thought this would be a good way of raising consciousness, and perhaps even funds for established animal charities (for a few options, see the end of this post). Sadly, elephants are once again becoming endangered at the hands of ivory poachers, on a scale not seen since the 1970s.

I'll also be including a fun fact about elephants or a piece of elephant lore each day, just to keep things interesting.

And now for today's elephant. I discovered needle-felting about a month ago while browsing Etsy, and decided to give it a try. I am fortunate to live in a fairly large city with many artistic resources, so finding felting needles and wool roving wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.

Needle felting can either be done on a flat surface such as a piece of fabric or a sweater, or used for making three-dimensional forms. I haven't tried the flat version yet, although I have made about ten tiny toy animals over the past few weeks.


The little elephant head in this post was created in just under an hour by taking grey wool roving (carded but unspun fibre, usually sheep's wool), and poking a barbed needle through it hundreds of times. The more you poke the needle through the fibres, the denser the material becomes. Essentially, the microscopic scales on the individual fibres grab onto one another and snarl together. It's the same principle that leaves you with a doll's sweater if you inadvertently put your favourite cashmere cardigan through the my-jeans-are-filthy cycle of a washing machine.
 
This is a pretty simple process, the main caveat being that the needles are extremely sharp, and it's easy to stab yourself. Colours can be overlaid with a few jabs of the needle, which is my preferred way of working with this technique; other artists add paint, beads and other bits and bobs. I also prefer not to use a wire armature, although many artists do use wire, which makes their creations gently poseable.

Etsy has many fine examples of needle felting, and there are great how-to videos on YouTube. I taught myself in a couple of hours by playing with the materials and watching a couple of YouTube videos—including one featuring an 8-year-old making a needle-felted apple—so it's really not hard to learn.

Elephant Lore of the Day
By a happy coincidence, this blog's title, "Elephant a Day", sounds like the family name "Elephantidae", which has two genera: Elephas (the Asian Elephant) and Loxodonta (the three species of African Elephant). A third genus, Mammuthus, is now extinct.


To Support Elephant Welfare
World Wildlife Fund
World Society for the Protection of Animals
Elephant sanctuaries (this Wikipedia list allows you to click through to information on a number of sanctuaries around the world)