Spinning Into the New Year

Getting reacquainted with an old friend

How is 2024 going so far? I’ve already managed to type the wrong date on an invoice, so that blunder is out of the way. How about you? Have you packed away the holiday hoopla and settled in to your (new, improved) routine?

One thing I want more of in 2024 is hand spinning. Early last year, I worked on a big project for an article which appeared in the Winter issue of Interweave Knits. For seven weeks, my evenings and weekends were dedicated to spinning Icelandic wool. A little over 2 pounds of wool turned into over 2,000 yards of 2-ply yarn. It was a lot. It was on a deadline. And I haven’t touched my spinning wheel since.

For me, knitting is my work. Spinning has been my hobby. Sitting down at the wheel is a cue to take a deep breath, relax, and settle into the rhythm of the wool. While I enjoyed last year’s big project, it was definitely work. And it sucked the desire to spin right out of me. Once those bags of wool were empty, I parked the wheel in a corner of my office. For eight months, it was if I had draped it with an invisibility cloak.

I’ve decided it’s time to recover my joy in spinning. First, I had to have a little talk with myself: “It’s OK to set your knitting aside for a few hours. You’re in good shape with your deadlines. Relax. Your hands will appreciate the change.”

Once that was taken care of, I dove into my stash and came up with 8 ounces of hot pink merino and silk. I think I bought this at Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair (SAFF) in 2021. It’s about as far as you can get from the natural white Icelandic wool I spun last year.

Last Saturday, I carried my Ashford Traditional wheel from the office to the living room and set her in front of a chair next to a window. As atonement for the months of neglect, I wiped her down, tightened her joints, and oiled all her friction points. Then I began to spin.

I’ve filled two bobbins so far. I want to make this a 3-ply yarn, so there is a way to go, but I’ll show you the yarn when it’s done.

I want to devote some time each week to spinning, but I’ve promised myself there will be no deadlines. No pressure. No plan for what I’ll knit with it. Just spinning yarn. We all need hobbies, things we do simply for the pleasure they bring. I want to allow spinning to reclaim that role in my life.

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What do you do just for fun? I’d love to hear about your hobbies in the comments.

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While I was spinning, I listened to an extraordinary novel: Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.

Chain Gang All Stars imagines a time in the not-so-distant future when the US prison system is run by for-profit corporations. Prisoners with lengthy sentences are offered the opportunity to win early release by participation in CAPE, Criminal Action Penal Entertainment. This wildly profitable program includes pay-per-view televised gladiatorial matches where prisoners fight to the death. Survive three years on the Chain Gang circuit, and the prisoner is awarded “high freedom”. Failure to survive is referred to as “low freedom”. Either way, they are no longer imprisoned.

While the novel is brutal at times, it is not about the battles. It is about people. We see how the prisoners manage to safeguard their humanity and build families within an impossible situation. We see how the consumption of graphic violence as entertainment affects those who watch. We also see where the combination of mass incarceration, systemic racism, and rampant capitalism could take us as a society.

It's easy to say, “I’d never watch a program like Chain Gang”. If a movie trailer features car crashes, explosions, or bloody gore, I’m not going to see the film. But I am a fan of professional football and will happily watch the 49ers march through the playoffs in the coming weeks. Yes, those men play for big money, not for commutation of a prison sentence, but I can’t deny that it’s violence as entertainment. I also own every one of the Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child, and I’m enjoying revisiting those stories through the series on Prime. While the Reacher books are plot-driven character studies, there is plenty of violence, and it bothers me not a bit.

Listening to Chain Gang All Stars has made me question my taste for, or tolerance of, violence as entertainment. Why do I find the Chain Gang idea so abhorrent, but the NFL is OK? Is Reacher acceptable because he only kills people who “need killing”?

Chain Gang All Stars is a book I wish I could put directly into the hands of every thinking person in the nation. The audiobook is brilliantly produced, with a variety of narrators. I’ve also ordered this book in hardcover. I want to spend more time with these questions, and give these ideas the opportunity to worm into my brain through another channel.

For more on the American system of incarceration, I also recommend Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. This book was made into a movie a few years ago staring Michael B. Jordan, who is always a pleasure to watch, but Stevenson’s writing is worth your time for the depth of his thinking about the ethics of mass imprisonment and the death penalty. Much of that depth is sacrificed to the movie’s need for a clear linear narrative.

I’ll bet when you started reading about hot pink merino and silk you didn’t expect we’d end up with violence and the death penalty. But there you are. Sometimes life takes unexpected turns. Thanks for sticking with me.