I finally got to the end of a bag of cotton roving that had been sitting in the cupboard, waiting to be spun. Perhaps it was waiting the arrival of the penny tahkli? I wanted to get some slubbiness to the yarn, so left lumps and bumps in it at regular intervals. The trouble is, more practice = less character to the yarn. During a recent alpaca spinning workshop at the Guild, I quoted the English comedian Les Dawson and his signature act of playing the piano with carefully placed “wrong” notes. He explained during an interview that you had to be good at playing the piano before you could be intentionally bad. In spinning terms, I guess that explains the difference between a beginner’s yarn and an art yarn. Nevertheless, yours truly shall continue to practise being intentionally bad.

As you can see, I spun as much cotton as would fit on the tahkli. Just the “feel” of it told me that any more fibre wasn’t an option as the spinning slowed and became more “cumbersome”. Then, this weekend just passed, I found an olive bowl – just the right width and length to accommodate the tahkli in resting mode.