April 2015 A-Z Challenge - Y is for Yarn Spinning

When I moved to Alabama I went to work for Russell.  They were one of the largest manufacturers of cloth goods.  They made everything from long underwear to jerseys worn by sports teams at many levels.  So my word for the letter Y today is yarn spinning.  There have been many yarn spinners in my family.  I had a great grandmother and great aunt who actually did yarn spinning and weaving the old fashioned way. That was what I thought I had signed on for when I took at job at Russell.  I imagined a whole lot of little ladies doing this in a big building.  NOT!

 

Oh No!  This is what I got!  It was loud, it was big, it terrified the day lights out of me.  Every day when I left to go home I would have to blow the yarn lint off me.  It was everywhere.  I am not a quitter....but I lasted less than a week at this job.  I went home every day and cried myself to sleep.  I hated this job.  I guess I owe yarn spinning a huge thanks because it definitely increased my prayer life.  I prayed daily for God to take me away....you know...kind of like Calgon.  Russell did not fire me....they relocated me....to a sewing plant.  I ended up sewing gussets in men's long johns.  For a solid year I reported in...and sewed.  At the end of the year I went back to college and finished my teaching degree.

I still want to learn yarn spinning and weaving  the old fashioned way, but it is a dying art and hard to find people who still are yarn spinning craftsmen.  I could probably find one in the Appalachians or attend one of John Campbell's schools in North Carolina.  You just wait til I retire...I am going to be a yarn spinning, yarn weaving, yarn telling,  craftsman.  Final thought for today....At a retirement preparation seminar I attended they told us to make a list of 26 things we wanted to accomplish or do after retiring....not to worry...my list is already way past 50 and still growing.