I read somewhere that our lives are written straight with crooked lines. The older I get, the more I think that life is really a circle made of tangled skeins.

There are so many skeins that intertwine to bring me back home; in this case, quite literally. Last October, we moved full-time into the “beach house” that my husband’s parents purchased the year we were married. The house is full of memories. We came here almost every summer weekend for over forty years. One of the four bedrooms is still referred to as “Pop and Gram’s room”; that’s where my husband’s grandparents stayed. My husband’s computer room is where his brother stayed. We now occupy my in-law’s master bedroom. In a sense, we have grown old to become them. We can look in any room and see family furniture (including the book case and bureau that were in my husband’s bedroom room when he was growing up).

The house is tiny; much smaller than our home of 34 years in the Philadelphia suburbs. The move was a total horror story–moving 34 years of “stuff” into a house that was not only half the size, but also filled with “stuff”. (If you want the full horror video, look at http://drop.io/anniesl/media)

The next full-circle strand starts, in part, at the 2008 MD Sheep and Wool show. I have had fiber in my blood (and in my hands) since a knitting needle was first placed there when I was eight. I have woven, spun, knitted, crocheted, needlepointed, embroidered, and beaded my way through many years. Since about 2000, my passion had been beading–working with seed beads of increasingly tiny sizes and collecting Lampwork beads on eBay and Etsy. At that 2008 MDSW show, I stopped in the Uncommon Threads tent and found the yarn of my dreams–a lovely pink yarn with BEADS in it. It was just enough to make a scarf, which I immediately began and finished. I loved that scarf–and I never got to wear it; it was lost in the move to the shore.

Someone browsing fiber at Maryland Sheep and Wool

As part of our horror show move, we converted the garage of the house into a studio for me. I’m a graphic artist and Photoshop “expert” (I guess that is my title). I teach online courses in Photoshop and Illustrator that are given though local colleges in the US, Canada, UK, NZ, and Australia. So, I’m on the computer all day (and night). Now, in the new studio, I would have my beads, my fiber, and my computer (all my toys) in one place

The studio

And, coming home again, I would finally have a place to set up my spinning wheel where I could use it easily!

My spinning wheel

Let’s back up this saga to “my spinning wheel”. I got my first wheel somewhere in the late 1970s. I’d taken a workshop from the Embroiderer’s Guild to learn how to use a drop spindle. The instructor wanted to get together enough people so she could order unfinished spinning wheels directly from Ashford at the wholesale price. My first spinning wheel cost me $35.00. I was shown how to turn yarn into thread and how to use hand cards. I never learned that there was more to do with it than that. In 1980, I was stricken with fibromyalgia, which is an arthritis-like disorder of the muscles and connective tissue characterized by pain that keeps jumping around and, in my case, a total lack of stamina and arm strength. The poor wheel sat in the garage for several years until I finally gave it, and my four-harness loom, away.

I think that lack of color (and wool) to spin might also have played a role here. I’m all about color. Natural wool is lovely, but it isn’t going to keep me interested long enough to ever get me to finish anything. (I am really good at UFO’s. When my son was born, my mother reminded me that I could NOT put him in a closet like the other unfinished projects! Though there was really no danger of that…) There also weren’t very many sources of dyed spinning fiber in Philadelphia in 1980.

At some point in the mid 1980’s I purchased a knitting machine with a motor (because I lacked the arm strength to push the carriage). That was not a very satisfying experience. The yarn was most cheap acrylic and the motor would snap the yarn every few rows. I got very tired of “knit fours rows, drop the stitches, fix the yarn, pick the stitches up from the floor, put the stitches back, and start over.” However, I made some very good friends from this–and learned Photoshop and got my first electric spinning wheel.

Gee, those sound like they logically follow from getting a knitting machine! It’s that tangled skein again.

Briefly (if I can be brief with anything), I had been working full time for a nightmare boss when I developed fibromyalgia in 1980. I had left work with a herniated disk to go onto long-term disability. When I was illegally laid off, I went back to school and got my MS in Information Science. I spent most of the 1980’s teaching management information systems at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Drexel was the first college in the US to adopt a mandatory purchase of the Macintosh computer in 1984–so of course I got one. However, it only did black and white graphics. That was an improvement, though, over the really clunky input devices that were being sold by the knitting machine companies to input patterns to the electronic knitting machines.

There was no easily available internet just then, but the local knitting machine store put me in touch with Susan Lazear of Cochenille Computer Knits. Susan was developing a program that would allow you to use a personal computer (at first, the Commodore 64) to design repeat patterns and send them to the knitting machine. Susan also had just started a new forum on CompuServe for fiber crafts and she asked me to be a sysop for the needlepoint section (I had had a needlepoint shop for several years and I painted canvases and designed custom projects. I also had written a self-published book on how to select needlepoint stitches for a painted canvas.)

Even though we were still at the point in technology where I had to place a really expensive phone call to London to purchase Rowan yarn, I now had a toe-hold on the computer age. I learned the ins and out of CompuServe and how to send messages and work in a forum. I also read about these interesting new graphics programs coming out.

I complained one day to a co-worker at Drexel, that I wanted so badly to try out these new programs to see if they would do textile design, but I couldn’t afford them (Illustrator 88, Freehand, Corel Draw). The co-worker just happened to host a talk show on local radio called “Talking About Computers.” He suggested that I write to the companies and ask for review copies of the software and then come on his show and review them. So I did. One of the programs sent for review was Photoshop 1.0!

I began to write to for a local desktop-publishing newspaper doing software reviews. I became active in the Adobe forum on CompuServe and was asked to become a sysop there. I was then approached by an acquisitions editor for Waite Group Press and asked to write my first book, Photoshop 3.0 Special Effects How To.

My computer station in my studio

And the e-spinner??? I met all my Crafts forum friends at Convergence in Washington, DC around that time, and I was tending Susan’s booth when she came running to tell me that she’d found a place that had an electric spinning wheel and that I should go and buy it because I’d be able to spin again! So I did. It was okay, but there still weren’t all that many types of fiber I could find to spin.

Stitches East was born about a mile from my home. That annual event finally gave me access to hand dyed fiber every year. I also bought my Spintech spinner there. I didn’t do much with that either, but I had it and promised myself that “someday” I was really going to spin again.

I bought a Majacraft Susie at MD Sheep and Wool in the mid 1990’s in the mistaken belief that the double treadle would be good exercise. I can manage about five minutes at a time… However, it is a gorgeous room decoration (sigh) and I would look at it longingly. My friend and I were looking for a new spring and tension cord for it in 2008 so she could take it to a spinning workshop when we found my pink beaded yarn. The skein is starting to take shape…

My Majacraft Susie in the old house

When I discovered that the pink scarf did not make the move with us, I was devastated.  I contacted Uncommon Threads and they gave me several names of spinners. That’s how I found Material Whirled online. The yarns were a revelation. I had never seen art yarns before. I also discovered a web ring of art yarn spinning and so I “found” Insubordiknit and Pluckyfluff. Now I was totally hooked (or spun-in–if I don’t want to mix metaphors!)

One of my aims for the new studio was to get back to spinning. Now I had a real goal. I wanted to make beaded yarn and make another scarf! I’ve since had the pleasure of meeting both Lexi (Pluckyfluff) and Jacey (Insubordiknit) and taking their workshops. Jacey’s DVD has pride of place where I can keep popping it into the computer to see.

Art yarns that I spun at the workshops

I’ve brought the skein full circle, but another thread is forming from it. I love the spinning. I coaxed Curt Fricke into making me a special e-spinner that would take a jumbo bobbin, and we modified a Majacraft Wild Flyer to fit on it. I finally have a wheel I can easily spin with; it’s a joy to use. I purchased a drum carded at the 2009 MDSW. My new studio is overflowing with fiber–certainly more than I will ever be able to use up in knitting. I joined Ravelry and found the wonderful Etsy community of spinners and fiber artists. And I just opened my own Etsy shop so I can share my joy and love of fiber (and Photoshop). I want to stock it with beads and beads projects, yarn, batts, and Photoshop elements. I’m not sure if I’m allowed to package Photoshop “help”, but I would like to be able to offer quick fixes for fiber photos that didn’t turn out as expected or tips for designing patterns on the computer.

Some of my beadwork

I am trying to find my own voice and style in spinning and carding but I am so grateful for the community that has welcomed me into their circle. I think I have come home.

My beading station with lots of Loop clouds waiting to be put away

Here it is a bit neater!

My bead storage area for seed beads and projects with fiber above it

My collection of Lampwork beads

Fiber Everywhere!

In the closet

Bottom view

Back of the closet

Editorial Notes:

You can find more of Sherry:

Ravelry: prancingpixel

Etsy: http://prancingpixel.etsy.com

Photoshop Course: http://www.ed2go.com/cgi-bin/ed2go/newcrsdes.cgi?course=ic4&title=Introduction^to^Photoshop^CS4&departmentnum=DP