potato spindle

spinning is an ancient textile art in which plant, animal or synthetic fibers are twisted together to form yarn. For thousands of years, fiber was spun by hand using simple tools before they devised the spinning wheel in the middle ages and later developed industrial spinning technologies. in class yesterday we made our simple tool with a wood dowel and a potato. we  each left with a grocery bag of wool to spin to yarn which we will dye on wednesday followed by a demo on how to crochet. these are the kind of things that fiber people do. yesterday i found myself online, ordering silk. i dont know where all this learning is going to take me artistically, but it does make sitting in front of the television suddenly productive.