Dear Spinning Circle,

This month, on Wool n' Spinning Radio, Rebecca answered a bunch of questions from myself about preparing for a long trip. As many of you know, Rebecca and her family will be on Sabbatical from their work in Nunavut for 5 months. I wanted to understand more about how she prepared for the making she would be doing while away!

Patreon Link here

Here are the rough questions I asked Rebecca about her preparations to travel:

1. What were you thinking about when you were first preparing for your trip? What were some of the projects you thought about initially? Did that change in your preparations?

2. What kind of preparation did you do? Carding? Combing? Etc.

3. How do you envision travelling with your projects? IE. Do you see yourself crafting while you are actually travelling (planes, trains, etc) or are you prepping more for when you are actually staying in places?

4. Do you have any plans to pick up projects along the way? Purchasing while travelling? Any ideas about where you would like to go? Anything you are particularly excited about?

Thank you for tuning in today!

If you have a story to tell about how you got started on your handspinning journey, a project you're working on that you think others would be interested in or anything else, please reach out! We'd love to have you as a guest.

Be sure to check out last month's episode of Wool n' Spinning Radio here.

Until next time,

Rachel & Rebecca

Dear Spinning Circle,

This month, Rebecca and I sat down to discuss a slightly different topic that we don't often explore, which is about our journey to intentional spinning. Rebecca asked some incredibly thoughtful questions to ground our discussion and I would love to hear some of your thoughts - please leave your comments here!

Link to Patreon post here

The Journey of Intentional Spinning:

1. Can you describe your journey toward becoming an intentional spinner? What was your spinning like when you started? What drove you to become more intentional? Who were your teachers/resources? What practices helped you the most? Do you remember a breakthrough yarn or project?

2. ⁠Now that you’ve been an intentional spinner for a long time, what has changed? What is easier or harder now? How is your perspective different than you thought it would be? What practices have you held onto or let go of?

3. ⁠As a podcaster and spinning teacher, how does that impact your intentionality? How do you spin differently when you are teaching or producing “content” vs not?

4. What are some areas you'd like to continue to grow as an intentional spinner? Have you ever plateaued in your spinning - are there more advanced skills you'd still like to work on?

A few of the resources that Rachel discussed throughout the conversation:

Yarn-i-tec-ture: A Knitter's Guide to Spinning by Jillian Moreno here

The Essentials of Handspinning by Mabel Ross here

If you would like to be a guest on Wool n' Spinning Radio and share your story, please get in touch, either on Patreon through direct message or email (rachel (@) welfordpurls (dot) com).

Do you have any practices in your spinning that revolutionized your yarns? We'd love to hear about it - please share in the comments here.

Be sure to share this podcast episode with friends and family, like and subscribe, and leave a review if you are able - it helps to increase the podcast's visibility when searching for new things to listen to!

Until next time,

Happy Spinning!

Warmly,

Rachel & Rebecca

Dear Spinning Circle,

Another month of Wool n' Spinning radio! I can't believe we are really into 2024 now! This is the second part (Part I here) of Rebecca and my conversation about our goals and thoughts about 2024. We recorded towards to the end of January so we have some initial reflections about the year, how it started and momentuum on projects.

Patreon Post here

Please take a moment to share with us your thoughts on one or all of the questions we were contemplating ourselves in this episode - we'd love to hear from you!

Specific to Our Making in 2024:

1. Are there skills you want to develop or projects you want to complete in your making?
2. Are there any time-wasting activities you want to reduce?
3. Connection within our making is such a huge aspect of what we do and who we are. How can you strengthen your connections with others in the coming year?

If there is someone or something you'd like to hear on future episodes of Wool n' Spinning Radio, please reach out! If you have a making story to share, we'd love to feature you on the show - get in touch be messaging Rachel directly on Patreon, Slack or leaving a comment below!

Until next time,

Happy Spinning & Making!

Rachel & Rebecca

Dear Spinning Circle,

Welcome 2024! I hope this finds you happy, healthy & excited for the new year. I know here in my home, we have had a very quiet week, watching a couple of movies, soccer games & attending a hockey game (very Canadian of us). The kids had never been to a hockey game before so that was fun sharing that joy with them!

Today, Rebecca and I sat down to chat about the upcoming year here at Wool n' Spinning. The overarching theme of the next two years will be Sarah Anderson's The Spinner’s Book of Yarn Designs. We will be tackling the book in regular increments - see the syllabus here - with regular releases of content (Spinning Purls) from myself that touch on key points from within the book.

For a comprehensive overview of the options involved to engage in our 2-year book study - check out this post here. It is also available on the blog here.

Access to the Ravelry thread here

Access previous Wool n' Spinning Radio Episodes here

We also talked a little bit about the coming year. We began with tackling some overarching goals we both have for 2024, including a discussion of the following questions:

1. What are your top priorities for the coming year?
2. What specific goals do you want to achieve in the next year? What are your short-term goals for the upcoming months? What are your long-term goals for the upcoming months?
3. Are there any recurring challenges or obstacles that you want to address in the new year?
4. How do you envision your making or hobbies at the end of next year?

I hope you enjoyed our conversation! We have a few more questions we ran out of time to discuss today so we will pick up the thread of the conversation next month - see you then!

Have a wonderful holiday season - Happy New Year once again! Comment below with questions as they come up - if you're wondering, so are others!

Warmly,

Rachel

Dear Spinning Circle,

Today. On Wool n’ Spinning Radio. Rebecca and I sat down to reflect on the year, 2023. We started with a reflection on the highlights and standouts from the year. We talk about unexpected challenges, namely for Rachel throughout the year. Next, we talk about the community. There were some memorable interactions that really resonated with us as we interacted with you guys throughout the year.

Patreon here

Rebecca asked about some behind-the-scenes insights about how Rachel manages the Live Stream and some lessons they’ve learned throughout the year. We talk about how we’ve grown during the year and how we’ve changed our views and perspectives on certain things.

Looking forward, we talk about some of our goals and aspirations for the coming year, as well as talk about some of the things we have coming. More on that coming soon!

I hope you enjoy our conversation. Have a wonderful month!

Warmly,

Rachel & Rebecca

Dear Spinning Circle,

Welcome to another episode of Wool n' Spinning Radio - I am so pleased to be able to produce these episodes with Rebecca (@rebbiejaye). Rebecca took the lead on this month's episode, which was really fun for me as I was able to sit back and participate in a different way than I normally do - what a pleasure!

To learn more, please head to the original Patreon post here

To help ground the conversation, here are some of the 'primer' questions that Rebecca asked us to think about to prepare for recording. If it speaks to you, particularly if you are a journaller yourself, I would encourage you to write these down or use them as prompts to help you in your journey:

1. Some background: can you talk about how you feel generally about the October/November season? How has this year in particular been affecting your energy levels?

2. This year I think what’s different for me is that I’m really expecting the change. Not dreading it, just trying to be really aware. How has this year met/not met your expectations? Surprised you?

3. Sometimes our hobbies help us, and sometimes they get the better of us! Have you experienced crafting overwhelm this fall? Or have you been able to lay it aside when you need to?

4. How does your making change when you get tired or sick? Are there things that happen differently? Does being tired or sick feed your creativity in any way?

These questions really helped to guide our conversation around fatigue, making and energy. We also talk about Polyvagal Theory, which is the concept that the vagus nerve has a role to play in regulating our emotions, social connection and fear responses. There is much research still to be done on the subject and much has not been substantiated by neuroscience. The basic tenent is the following:

• Parasympathetic/Ventral-Vagal State/Vibe n' Tribe/Social Connection - our 'true' self, authentic, creativity occurs here
• Sympathetic State/Fight or Flight/Stress - feeling threatened, stress, perception of danger, 'doing' state, seeking safety, go-go-go
• Doral Ventral State/Freeze/Paralysis - numbing out, immobilization, lack of coping

I hope this is helpful to ground the conversation when Rebecca asks me to elaborate on Polyvagal Theory; and remember that it is a theory, something to think about, and there is much to learn/read about if you are curious to do so!

You can access the back-catalogue of Radio episodes here, if you would like to listen to more episodes like this one. As well, taking a moment to like, subscribe & rate/review the Radio show helps get it out there to other potential listeners!

Share your thoughts below, especially if you'd like to share some of your own journal responses, or in #podcastchat on Slack for community members.

If you would like to be a guest on Wool n' Spinning Radio, you can reach out to Rachel {at} welfordpurls {dot} com.

Until next month, I hope you are able to carve out some self-love. Tell us what you are going to do to LOVE YOURSELF this month - comment below.

Rachel & Rebecca

“Corespinning creates an amazing yarn that can replace a conventional spun yarn.“ -Crystal Hesser

For full shownotes with photos, please visit here

To share your spinning, we have a couple of places to share:

Slack Channel: #texturedyarn

Ravelry Group: CoreSpin Along here

We have talked about corespinning in the community previously:

• 51 Yarns SpinAlong: Corespun, Coils & Supercoils Vlog
• 51 Yarns SpinAlong: Corespun, Coils & Supercoils PDF
• How I Spin: Corespinning & Autowrapping

Tips to Get Started:

1. Don’t give up
2. Good, strong core
3. Add twist to the core prior to starting
4. Even tension so that the core is being moved onto the bobbin steadily (this keeps the twist from building up beforehand)
5. Steam to finish
6. Have FUN!

MUSIC //

Glow & Yellow by Scott Buckley (@ScottBuckley) – released under CC-BY 4.0. scottbuckley.com.au

I hope you enjoy this ALONG with us - even if you just spin a little bit to give the technique a try, I encourage you to do so!

Warmly,

Rachel