Yesterday - One of Those Days

According to Donald Keene in describing Japanese tea ceremonies:

The most valued bowls for tea ceremony are irregularly shaped, and some have gold patches here and there accentuating (rather than concealing) damage suffered at the hands of long-ago owners. Asymmetry and irregularity allow the possibility of growth, but perfection chokes the imagination. (emphasis added.)

This is my understanding of the Japanese term wabi sabi. There is something very special about imperfections; they should be revered and not seen as negative in any way. And this my friends relates to my spinning of the Stormy Night roving I dyed in class this week.

All spun up, plied and put in a hank. I love the way my camera picks up the fuzziness of this yarn.

The colours really did turn out fine, although the green was a bit brighter than I had expected. Since the roving had been wet, steamed and dried during the colouring process it needed a fair amount of work to get it ready for spinning. This means it had to be pulled apart a bit because it had begun to felt. Yesterday after my post, I spent about 1.5 hours doing the preparation and spinning approximately one half the roving. It seemed to me things were going along pretty well. The spinning in my hopeful state of mind seemed to be rather consistent.

Last night I took my portable spinning wheel to Tena´s place for Knit Nite and in another 1.5 hours finished spinning the rest of the roving and plied it. It was during the plying process I realized my spinning was not nearly as consistent as I had imagined. Yet when I showed the finished product to Tena she was very complimentary. She stated something I really needed to hear at that moment, something like, ¨Well you know when you pick up handspun yarn you do not expect it to be perfect¨. And in my mind I thought, thank you Tena you are exactly right. I am not a machine; my spinning will never be perfect and it is rather silly to think it will be. It is OK to strive for perfection, but the odds of me achieving anything near it in four weeks is rather ridiculous.

Today, rather than remain unhappy with my lack of spinning perfection I am celebrating the fact that my yarn´s asymmetry and irregularity will allow for spinning growth. I am embracing the wabi sabi of my handspun yarn. Want to see what I will pair it with to make a toque?

This lopi yarn is produced in Iceland and I think the combination will make for some very nice colour work. Now all I need to do is find the perfect pattern.

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