Some gorgeous handspun socks and a rant
Jul. 19th, 2011 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
littlemousling posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
spinningBecause I can't stop staring at this, and I think you should stare for a while, too:
These socks were knit by an online acquaintance of mine, out of her handspun yarn.
Okay, so. Here is a thing that people do--and I mean a serious lot of people, spinners and non-spinners alike--when they talk about spinning: they diminish it, in comparison to millspun, without the slightest regard for A) history or B) reality.
Here's how that usually goes:
"Well, of course handspun isn't as even, but that's what makes it special!"
or
"... what gives it character!"
or
"No one can spin as perfectly as a mill, but that's okay!"
or
"... and that's why spinning is pointless!"
or
"I'm not interested in spinning because I don't like handspun yarn; it's too uneven."
or
"... I don't like handspun yarn; it's too dense."
or
"... "it's too different."
or or or or or.
So. Okay. Here we have the work of a woman who's been spinning for about five years. Not a lifetime. It's one of her hobbies, not her source of income; she is not sitting at her wheel eight hours a day.
Now consider that before the invention of the spinning jenny and its progeny, every thread in every textile throughout human history was handspun. Every sail on Columbus' ships; every thread in every tapestry; every garment that required spun fiber*, every rug and blanket and pillow. EVERYTHING.
(*I started to put something down about kimonos but I'm not 100% certain the silk was spun as well as reeled. Hand-reeled for sure, though!)
Somehow we've let ourselves get the impression that bulky, uneven handspun--the kind produced by beginners and the kind produced in much higher quality for certain specific purposes--defines the word "handspun" more accurately than the yarn used in the socks above.
And that is just such bullshit.
In the probably 10,000-odd years (or more) since humans started spinning fibers to make yarn, I would bet that 99.999999% of all the yarn produced has been much more like the yarn in these socks than like any lumpy beginner's singles. These socks are beautiful, but more importantly they are practical. I'm certain that they'll wear well and last a good long while.
The problem is that very few of us know anyone who's been spinning as a hobby for five years, much less as a necessity for twenty, or forty, or sixty. We have no frame of reference for what handspun yarn actually looks like when it's spun by someone who's had the time to develop mastery. So instead we take what we do have--our own and others' beginning work (and I don't just mean the first three or ten or thirty skeins, because like any skill, it really does take time and practice to master)--and make that our standard and our expectation. It gets to the point where I know people who've been spinning for years who are astonished at handspun that doesn't even approach the yarn in the socks above, because they just don't see that. Ever.
So, anyway. I don't have much of a solution, except: we need to see photos like this, and we need to stop diminishing ourselves by suggesting that this is not achievable, or that it's not normal, or that it's not what handspun "is."
These socks were knit by an online acquaintance of mine, out of her handspun yarn.
Okay, so. Here is a thing that people do--and I mean a serious lot of people, spinners and non-spinners alike--when they talk about spinning: they diminish it, in comparison to millspun, without the slightest regard for A) history or B) reality.
Here's how that usually goes:
"Well, of course handspun isn't as even, but that's what makes it special!"
or
"... what gives it character!"
or
"No one can spin as perfectly as a mill, but that's okay!"
or
"... and that's why spinning is pointless!"
or
"I'm not interested in spinning because I don't like handspun yarn; it's too uneven."
or
"... I don't like handspun yarn; it's too dense."
or
"... "it's too different."
or or or or or.
So. Okay. Here we have the work of a woman who's been spinning for about five years. Not a lifetime. It's one of her hobbies, not her source of income; she is not sitting at her wheel eight hours a day.
Now consider that before the invention of the spinning jenny and its progeny, every thread in every textile throughout human history was handspun. Every sail on Columbus' ships; every thread in every tapestry; every garment that required spun fiber*, every rug and blanket and pillow. EVERYTHING.
(*I started to put something down about kimonos but I'm not 100% certain the silk was spun as well as reeled. Hand-reeled for sure, though!)
Somehow we've let ourselves get the impression that bulky, uneven handspun--the kind produced by beginners and the kind produced in much higher quality for certain specific purposes--defines the word "handspun" more accurately than the yarn used in the socks above.
And that is just such bullshit.
In the probably 10,000-odd years (or more) since humans started spinning fibers to make yarn, I would bet that 99.999999% of all the yarn produced has been much more like the yarn in these socks than like any lumpy beginner's singles. These socks are beautiful, but more importantly they are practical. I'm certain that they'll wear well and last a good long while.
The problem is that very few of us know anyone who's been spinning as a hobby for five years, much less as a necessity for twenty, or forty, or sixty. We have no frame of reference for what handspun yarn actually looks like when it's spun by someone who's had the time to develop mastery. So instead we take what we do have--our own and others' beginning work (and I don't just mean the first three or ten or thirty skeins, because like any skill, it really does take time and practice to master)--and make that our standard and our expectation. It gets to the point where I know people who've been spinning for years who are astonished at handspun that doesn't even approach the yarn in the socks above, because they just don't see that. Ever.
So, anyway. I don't have much of a solution, except: we need to see photos like this, and we need to stop diminishing ourselves by suggesting that this is not achievable, or that it's not normal, or that it's not what handspun "is."
