I just finished reading Start Spinning: Everything You Need to Know to Make Great Yarn by Maggie Casey, and I have to highly recommend this terrific book. It has excellent photographs and she walks you through things slowly enough that you don’t get lost.

Ms. Casey begins by answering the question I had for many years – “WHY?” Why spin one’s own yarn? I mean, there are yarn shops for that, and mills to spin it, right? Once I fell in love with artsy yarns and realized how fun they could be I started to become interested in spinning my own. It is also more cost effective for a fiber grower such as myself to spin my own yarn. Economic times have made me look at these things.  But Casey really convinced me to give it a try when she spoke about the connection between spinning and our heritage. Not to mention the connection with the animals that grow our fleece and the consumers of our yarn.

This book teaches more than just how to spin. It teaches you about yarn. For alpaca breeders who aren’t spinning yet, this book is a helpful resource in understanding the process, and terms like “twist”, “wpi”, “ply”, and much more. As fiber growers, the more we know about our product and how it will be used, the better our product can be.

I’m dying to learn to spin! We will be holding a Beginning Spinning Class at our alpaca farm on Saturday, May 23th for anyone who would like to join us. Our teacher will be long-time Fiber Artist and Alpaca Breeder Sheri Watkins. Sheri is so kind, patient, and full of knowledge. Wheels will be available for rent that day or for purchase. If you ever wanted to learn to spin, and if you’d love to meet our alpacas ~ Join us! Click here for a registration form. You can also contact me at alpacas (at ) bellsouth.net for more information.

In the meantime, I am so impressed with this book, that I am going to give one away. There are four ways to enter to win a copy of this book:

1. Leave a comment telling me what you love about fiber, spinning, alpacas, anything really related to this topic.
2. Tweet about the giveaway and leave another comment including your tweet URL. (After you tweet go to your “updates”. Click on the date/time under your contest tweet. That’s the URL you want)
3. Subscribe to our RSS feed (top right corner of page). Leave a comment saying you did so.
4. Sign up for our farm email list (both are in the top right corner of this page). Leave a comment telling me that you did so.

Thanks for your entries and good luck. Contest will close Monday, May 4 at Midnight (CST). One winner will be chosed at random.

Fiber Arts Friday Blog Carnival!

To participate:

1. Add the permalink to a specific blog post that features something Fiber Art related, rather than your general blog address and not your Etsy store. (Please DO put a link in your blog post that takes us to your store though.)
2. Link back to Fiber Arts Friday from your post so that your readers can come and see everyone else’s projects! Use the button or a text link to http://www.alpacafarmgirl.com.
3. Visit as many of the other participants as possible and leave comments! That’s what helps us all connect!
4. Double-check to make sure your link works and goes to the right page so it doesn’t get deleted.

Be sure to visit our wonderful participants AND please leave them some comments!

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