Archive for December 7th, 2008

People often ask me to recommend books, and I generally hand out a list with class notes as well. Some of my books are copies I keep particularly to have on hand to show beginners, but there are hardly any that I don’t pick up and refer to at least occasionally, and some that I really couldn’t live without.

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I bought Spinning in the Old Way by Priscilla Gibson-Roberts when I got heavily back into spinning a couple of years ago. It’s still one of my favourite reference books, although it is aimed only at the spindle-spinner. Recently, we have added Maggie Casey’s Start Spinning to the list for beginners and I think it’s fantastic.

For information on creating different types of yarns, e.g. slub/boucle/coil/blended/etc… Spinning Designer Yarns by Diane Varney is great. (This is the book Yoshimi and I used in our experimentation day). The layout isn’t very intuitive, but it’s packed with information and well worth picking up of you see a copy. Creative Spinning by Alison Daykin also has info about creating unusual yarns, but this is very much more an ‘art’ book; good for inspiration and full of gorgeous pictures.

My ultimate favourite - if I had to keep just one spinning book, would be In Sheep’s Clothing by Nola Fournier and Jane Fournier. There are chapters on choosing, washing, blending, spinning fleece, etc., but the bulk of the content is a definitive guide to all the different sheep breeds and their fleece types. You can look up anything you like and find out staple length, lustre, likelihood of felting, and where the sheep are found. Dry and geeky perhaps - but I love it!

Until lately, when spinning exploded into popularity again, there was very little out there for the intermediate to advanced spinner. I’m very excited about two new books soon to appear on the market: Spin Control by Amy King, and The Intentional Spinner by Judith MacKenzie McCuin are on my wishlist and I am waiting very impatiently for them to be released.

These are not all the books on my shelf, and certainly not all the ones on my wishlist! But if you’re shopping around for titles, or want to leave some hints for the family this festive season then you could call this my ‘Top 7′ I guess :-D

What’s on your bookshelf??

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