A Closer Look with Rita Buchanan eBook

From one of our all-time great master spinning teachers: a collection of in-depth articles from out-of-print issues of Spin Off magazine. A Closer Look with Rita Buchanan covers aspects of drafting, plying, finishing, yarn management, and knitting to gauge with a unique and well-considered point of view. An important addition to the contemporary spinning canon.

A foreword from founder, Linda Ligon:

I’ll never forget my introduction to Rita Buchanan’s work. It started with a letter in the mail in about 1983 or 1984. Would you like to see the walnut-dyed handspun jumper I just wove? Well, of course.

What came in the mail just knocked my socks off. We often saw handspun art-to-wear, and excellent handspun knitted garments were not uncommon. But so very few people in this country at that time were spinning yarn for woven wearable garments that were really hard-working, practical, and handsome. There were so many shibboleths. One of the most common was: you can’t weave with a handspun warp.

Well, Rita had, and it wasn’t the first time she had defied conventional wisdom. Nor the last. Her clear-eyed, common-sense approach to the craft of making and using excellent handspun yarn was to be played out in more than sixty contributions to Spin.Off over the next two decades.

Having stepped aside from a long and illustrious career as an author and editor, Rita has generously agreed to let us make her past articles available to you in digital form. Read them and learn.

~ Linda