Lefty

I once took a quiz that showed whether you were right-brained or left brained. The results had a top-view picture of a brain with a quadrant graph superimposed on it, and a dot plotted on the graph to illustrate your brainededness. If your dot was plotted front or back, that meant something important (that I've totally forgotten), and if it was right or left, that meant you were creative or logical. My dot was dead-freaking-center.

I've always done the art thing, but truth be told, I come at it from a very left-brained angle. I see my projects a series of problems to be solved, like a puzzle. Lately I've gone blank on the painting (embracing apathy as a way of life is fine and dandy, but sure makes it hard to come up with passionate ideas to paint about - I can only render so many still lifes of vases and fruit), so I've turned to fiber. Knitting and spinning seem to be the right thing for me, because whether my fickle brain is feeling leftish or rightish, I can find a fiber-related activity to satisfy it.

Left-Brain Carey is driving today. My first spinning session resulted in the above hank of yarn, and a lot of questions. While I realize that spinning even, consistently twisted yarn and understanding when to adjust the tension on my wheel are things that will come with time, they are still puzzles. Puzzles have solutions, and solutions come from the internet.

Therefore, I spent the whole damn day reading the internet. I read about controlling twist and adjusting the Scotch tension on my spinning wheel. There are a lot of helpful articles out there. There are three thousand times as many articles that suggest that, "too much twist is bad" and "not enough twist is bad" and "if the tension is off, that's bad". Well, gee, that's helpful. I'm the kind of person who wants to know EXACTLY how many twists per inch I need in the weight of yarn I'm making, and EXACTLY how much fiber should go into the single as I draft, and EXACTLY how much I should adjust the tension and when and where I should tighten or loosen it, and the best answer I've come up with is "adjust as necessary." I'm coming to learn that there IS no "exactly" in handspinning. I might have to go breathe into a paper bag for a minute.

Or, heaven forbid, stop being cheap buy a book.