Funky the Clown

I have a (probably somewhat irritating) habit of blurting out my inner dialogue. The most recent of these occured while walking down Yonge St. with two in-town friends and one from Calgary, just traipsing along, when suddenly I exclaimed (to their great surprise) "THERE'S the Papya Hut!" What they didn't know was that I had been searching for its location for over two weeks and come up naught, so finding it was a huge deal to me. It was not, however, such an occasion for them. There were many strange looks exchanged, and more than a few teasing comments. I've learned to accept this. If I'm going to scream unusual things on the street, I'm going to be stared at as if I have two heads. Fine.

Last week, T- and I began learning to drop spindle. This is a brand new superfun activity involved in the Yarnish Arts. For those not in the know (much as I was before I started the class), it's basically learning to spin your own yarn from pre-treated fleece (or roving), without the aid of a spinning wheel. Instead, you use a cute (portable!) device known as a "drop spindle." Its portability came in handy when I got bored on the subway.
Toward the start of this class, each student was able to select from a stash of extremely pretty, hand dyed roving. I, of course, chose the tye-dyed looking lump of primary colours. During the drafting process (pulling the roving until the fibres come apart just a little, so it gets fluffy), I blurted out (as I am wont to do), "This one looks like clown hair!" I assure that I am not insane as it did (and does), in fact, look like what clown wigs are made of.
I spent the week spinning. I was a madwoman. I took the spindle everywhere. Even if I could only do it for a minute, I was all over it. I spun on the subway, the streetcar, the couch, the chair in the waiting room at the salon... I spun outside on the porch. I spun before bed. Just yesterday I spun at work because the kids thought it looked like fun and wanted to see what I was doing. I didn't finish the entire 50g of roving, but I made a good headway.
Today's class was taking our single strands and making them into a two-ply yarn. This was ultra fun, especially since my yarn strands were quite uneven (the way I like it). We twisted the two strands together, and all marvelled as to how each of our handiwork came to fruition.
I, however, began to laugh. All the while these strands are twisting together, they're looking more and more like dredlocks. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE dredlocks, and I love yarn that looks like dredlocks; I simply couldn't believe I was making a type of yarn that I adore in such exciting colours BY ACCIDENT! As I sat, giggling at my creation, I said to myself, 'It certainly looks like dreds. Circus dreds. If I made this into dreds,' (aloud) "I'd call myself Funky the Clown." As I had left out my inner dialogue, I once again received some strange looks, accompanied, of course, by laughter as soon as I displayed what I had made.

I gotta say, however, that spinning has become one of my new favourite hobbies. I've already bought more roving, and still need to finish the clown batch. I'm not sure what will come if it, and I'm certain I'm not all that good at it, but as long as I'm making yarn that I like, I can't go wrong.