1000% agreed! I got into spinning to make "art yarn" and while I don't make so much bulky+textured yarn these days, I think every skein we produce has artistry. The "art" nomenclature is just gatekeeping, imho.
Such a good point about it being a gatekeeping term too! So often used to describe thick and thin beginner yarn, but it can be so precise & complex too. I hate when beautiful art yarn get's reduced to "Just art yarn"
Jackass Collective recommended your podcast recently, your videos are amazing ! I'm binge watching them haha It's making me want to pick up spinning again and use all the singles I've spun when I first started, you're very inspiring !
@@carolinawolf7708 oh my gosh that’s so sweet to hear bc I recommend their channel to everyone!! I love her work, such a beautiful artist ☺️ if nothing else you should totally use your singles! Appreciate all your beautiful work
I love the look of art yarn, specifically the ones that don't look like commercial yarns. My problem has always been how to use them in my crochet or knitting. Thank you for showing us some examples on how to use them.
@@dianapulido1807 it does look so cool! As someone who now spins the yarn I’ve really come around to the idea that some yarns ARE the finished art, without ever being used in a project. I didn’t always feel this way though, and I have yet to see an art exhibit that shows yarn in this way, but I really hope to change that one day soon. There are lots of beautiful ways to work with art yarn, but I also just adore the way they look all skeined up, lookin pretty💕
I am definitely curious to see how your retting attempts turn out. Please let me know what you find. It is something that I tried and I was not able to find a whole lot of info about how to ret the stalk fibers. However, the fluff attached to the milkweed seeds is definitely spin-able easier to process and super soft. I found something somewhere that you should mix it with another fiber to give it more strength so I added it to wool. Be prepared as the fibers as you are blending them will float around so you may want to wear a mask so they don't tickle your nose. I was reading somewhere to harvest them you can take the seed pods and stick them on drying rack with holes and then the seeds will fall out on the bottom leaving the fluff behind. Just make sure you leave enough so the plants can re seed or you take the seeds you harvest and come back to seed them again.
I wrote out a long comment about the philosophy about what makes art, art, and RU-vid's suggested follow-up video glitched it all and it disappeared. Let me try again... I believe that it's *all* art. The irony is that when someone is skilled enough that their consistency is spot-on, the most minute details of their work become nearly inscrutable. It's ironic because they get so skilled that it seems to take the "emotion" from the medium, but that is no more true than someone whi is beginning spinning and has less control over their outcome. As Yarn artists work they instill their personal process, their very thoughts into the tiniest of decisions. A split-second difference in action isn't discernable when a person has a skill level so high that their yarn comes out completely consistent. We wouldn't look at a "perfectly"-executed drawing and say "that's not art." So why, when it comes to the "craftier" sides of art, do we gatekeep? Idk. Art is a spectrum
I have a few thoughts. Regarding using the commercial definition of ‘art-yarn’: I got a boucle/thread-ply/something really crazy looking storebought art yarn for weaving… I nearly threw the whole project out the window. All I had was a small frame-loom with no heddle. The yarn stuck to itself; it stuck to the warp; it got caught in the warp and refused to pull through properly. I managed to finish it, and promptly shoved it under our Keurig coffeemaker, where it still is today. I tried using the same yarn for crochet (just to have it actually be *useful*)… And couldn’t see my stitches. The yarn is now relegated to the basement, destined to be forgotten. Regarding making and using singles and ‘fancy yarns’: I don’t see them as being useful for what I like making. I want to make strong, hardwearing yarn that can last. The only thing I use bought singles for is naalbinding, because I know it will form a cohesive fabric with time, and will be very easy to repair. I never spin my singles for use on their own, because I always spin with a lot of twist. I’m very paranoid about having *enough* twist so that the yarn won’t fall apart. I don’t really *trust* singles. Even the storebought stuff sometimes falls apart while I’m working with it and annoys the living crap out of me! I’m sorry you got got by this age’s Plague, I hope you feel better!
I have never "mastered" the "perfect" singles. I never bothered to learn it. I went straight to plying, because i hate working with singles. I think I have just one skein of handspun singles, and i've been spinning for almost 4 years.
Spinning is such a vast hobby, I could spend the rest of my life perfecting the things i DO love and use, why would I waste time on the things I'll never use? You totally get it! As long as you're making yarn you love & you use, all is well :)
Especially now in the world of AI "art" encroaching on human made art, defining all handspinning as art is more important than ever. I'm noticing a shift away from "final product" art that can be replicated by computers towards "process art" where seeing or imagining the process of how the piece was made IS part of the art itself. When you see a piece of wheel thrown pottery and imagine the hands that made it fitting into the curves of the piece itself, THAT is process art. When you see handspun yarn, you imagine the raw fibers being drafted and plied. Just like crochet, the human hands are necessary for that product to exist. I think live acoustic music also falls into this category, it is an experience, not an mp3. And on social media there is a trend of artists to show their process, like a proof of human life in the art they create. Machine spun yarn is as ubiquitous as die cast china, it literally exists in every home, every restaurant. It probably exists on your person as you're reading this. And while ai images of impossibly large amigurumi next to imagined grandmothers get very popular on social media, I really do think that tangible human made process art will only increase in art status (and hopefully cultural value) as their machine made and computer dreamed counterparts become cheap and ubiquitous. All of my handspun yarn is art. Art is fundamentally human and machines can pry that out of my cold dead human hands.
