Let the Journey Begin: Hours 0-30ish

About two or three months ago my husband and I were talking to his parents, and his father suggested a book called "Outliers" by Malcom Gladwell. As my husband's father suggested the book, he got to read it first. Now that I have a chance, I am reading it. It's very interesting so far and I highly recommend it, but while it may have been the inspiration for this blog, it is not the reason for it.

In the second chapter, Gladwell finds that in almost every discipline, field of knowledge, or interest it takes 10,000 hours of delibrate focused time to become an expert. So that explains the "Ten Thou" part of the title, now for the "Spin"...

I have recently begun to spin yarn and for lack of a better turn become a fiber artist. I have been knitting for about 7 years, and a year or so ago made the jump form Michaels and Joanns to local yarn stores, or LYS. When I saw how many varieties of yarn were available, it proded my interest to delve deeper.

I have always been the type of person to do things for myself, and after a field trip with a group of third graders, my curiosity for spinning was piqued. Finally about 6 months ago, I was surfing Craftsy and saw a free class on Breed specific wool. After taking the class, I knew I had to start spinning, so for Christmas 2012 I got a student spindle from the best spinning authority online, Amazon, and found a small farm where I could order a large quantity of wool for a reasonable price.

I watched many videos on spinning and just kind of started. And once you start spinning, you have to start dying too. Since then I have spun through 5 out of the 16 ounces of the original Cottswald wool I bought, 4 ounces of Merino, and about an ounce of Border Leicester, all on my student spindle. I have also read about different fibers from "The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook" and through most of "Learning to Spin". All the while, thinking of ways to potentially make money with this.

Then last night, I was reading Gladwell's book "Outliers" reading about how it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert and I decided to take the plunge.

I've decided to track any activity I complete using yarn or wool along with research and classes relating to these activities. This means knitting, spinning, washing and combing, dying, reading, watching Youtube or Craftsy classes. I think it may be a bit short, but I have decided to credit my previous knowledge at 30 hours. This does not include all the knitting I have done in the past 7 years, but I'm going to let that slide mostly because it would be too hard to estimate how much time I've spent on it.

So, this is my journey from beginner spinner to expert fiber artist. I hope it goes well, and I would love to have some company.