In my quest to know everything there is to know about making stuff, I've begun to learn how to spin. I got to go along to the Michigan Fiber Festival this year with Rita of Yarn Hollow. I already had a neglected drop spindle and had bought a bunch of spinning-roving and used much of it for needle felting (which is a pricey way to do needle felting). I finally got a book, in violation of my usual I'll-figure-it-out-as-I-go method of learning things. This is pretty much how I learned to needle felt, and hang dry wall. I think it was okay with the needle felting and less efficient with the dry walling. 
The book has been quite helpful and I've got one quarter of my roving spun. I was even able to two ply it, which had been a bit of a mystery to me. I understood the twisting in principal, but I didn't understand how one got all of the yarn to do it at once. The Andean method involves a particular way of wrapping ones hand in yarn and then spinning the two lengths together.
I mean to get the rest of it spun up soon, but I'm also making socks for a friend of my who's currently in Iraq (and obviously needs socks), and I've got a great idea for a hat (because I obviously need another hat), so focusing on one project at a time is getting tricky.
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