I’ve been spinning for about 20 years. I look at some of the wilder novelty stuff and think, “Oh, that’s interesting. But I’m not the target audience for it.” What does ruffle me a little is the contention you read occasionally that these techniques are New! Improved! Never Used Before!! Uh, maybe it’s because they’re not really useful if you want to make yarn to USE??

I do enjoy seeing some of the novelty stuff, because it would never have occurred to me to do something like that. I’m always up for things that expand my mental horizons. But to do it myself? Not so much.

I’m with Janice. Love to look at it, but am not too terribly interested in making it or working with it outside of an occasional romp. When I first began to spin, ideas of novelty yarns flooded my brain, but luckily I didn’t bring any to fruition. ;0) Certainly there are uses for them and thank God they are keeping the knitting/spinning revival going. It is great to see all of the interest in these crafts.
Ummmm, the madder looks lucious. Truly.

How do you get that colour out of Madder?! Mine always leans to the reds. I’d like to get pinks and oranges, at least for the variety of it.

I like making novelty type yarns because it’s like giving yourself permission to take the time and the best materials and just…run with it. Not worrying about function, but playing with shapes and textures and colors; it starts with an idea, a structural challenge and it morphs into various practical applications to accomplish a whimsical goal. It’s a finished object all its own with its own separate creative process behind it and all those initial plans and modified dreams, and then, maybe you figure out the perfect thing to make with it.
Or you don’t, you just enjoy looking at it. (Or you don’t, and you ask yourself, “How high was I that _that_ seemed like a good idea?”;))

I’m not a spinner, don’t really have the time or the inclination, but I admire those that do, especially those who take the time and effort to produce large quantities of consistent and useable yarn. There are so many places where you can buy small quantities of handspun slubby multicoloured yarn, but apart from admiring it as a beautiful object in its own right, I have no idea what to do with it. I suppose it depends what your end goal is – a knitted or woven or sewn object or an interesting yarn, or ideally, the perfect marriage of material and design – say, a multicolour yarn that knits up into stripes.

Personally, I want my handspun to look like I made it, but not like I made it poorly. I do admire the perfection of veteran spinners, and someday I’ll get there, but I’m happy with the odd bump for now. But I love the link: thanks so much for that.

I want to add that I also don’t have the skills to spin. The above comment makes me sound like one of those people who say “Sure, I could write a novel, if I only had the time” and that wasn’t what I meant. I admire good spinning in part because I know I couldn’t do it.

When I was in grade school, I remember kids in art class who would splatter paint on a page and say “it’s an abstract painting. The best of the art teachers explained that you don’t get to call anything abstract, first you must learn and prove you know the fundamentals and then you can begin to abstract from there. When knitting became the fad again, fun fur scarves and ponchos served the same purpose. The result is, to be generous, “eye catching” and to the uninitiated may appear to be more complicated than it truly is, but in truth relying on oversimplified shapes and techniques does not an artist make.
The same could be applied to dance (there is some baaaaad interpretive or “modern” dance out there) and I’m sure a great many other arts and crafts.
I think you point speaks to that as well. There always seems to be that “quick fix” solution that less experienced people may be drawn to, to give that feeling of accomplishment. If they use it as a starting point and hone their skills then no problem, but that should be combined with dedicated focus on developing the core skills needed to go to the next level.
Just my 2¢ :)

A lot of this stuff seems to be (to me) fibre that somebody says “Look! I spun this!” but the resulting thing has no useful purpose. As long as you’re spinning for your own amusement but don’t foist it off as a skilled production