There are as many ways to do a thing...

 ...as there are spinners to do it.

- Gartha Ray

I met Gartha Ray back in the 1980s when she and Olber were living in Clanton, Alabama, and demonstrating carding and spinning cotton wherever they could. She liked to repeat her saying about there being many ways to do anything, about there being no one right way.

At the November spinning study meeting, as I watched Barabara Tucker spinning, I remembered Gartha's saying. Barbara was spinning cotton on a 1980s Ashford Traditional scotch tension spinning wheel that had one of the older flyers with ratios that are usually considered to be fairly slow. That wheel with that flyer isn't a high speed cotton wheel, but Barbara was happily spinning lovely cotton singles. 

I love that about spinning and all things textile. So many ways to do a thing.

Barbara Tucker's bobbin of cotton singles.

I've enjoyed taking care of the guild blog for a while and I am happily turning it over to Reannon and Joel Dorning. I look forward to following their blog.

Note: If you have access to old issues of Spin Off magazine, I wrote an article about Gartha and Olber Ray for the 1993 spring issue.