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| Jerry using his spindle |
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| using the great wheel for long-draw spinning |
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| knitting socks with his handspun, hand-dyed wool |
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| a skein of Jerry's beautiful 2-ply yarn |
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| Susan baking sugar cookies in her Vermont kitchen |
Jerry Osterman is the husband of Susan, one of our weekly students here at the weaving studio. In November of 2009, Jerry decided he'd like to learn how to spin, and took a week-end-long class with Norman Kennedy, where he learned first to spin with a spindle, and then on a great wheel, with Norman's unique method of traditional long-draw spinning.
He went home and began practicing everything he'd learned, encountering over time the necessity of training himself to spin consistently in differing yarn sizes. After some time he was building up quite a stash of yarn, and one day at the studio, Norman inquired with Susan about how Jerry was doing with his spinning, and when she replied that he was spinning up a storm, Norman said, "And what is he doing with all that yarn? He should be knitting!" So Susan taught Jerry the basics of knitting. And Jerry started knitting hats, and more hats, and even more hats. And he liked it, that knitting, just as much as all the spinning.
Feeling the need to broaden his horizons, Jerry then took a knitting class at The Knitting Studio in Montpelier, where he started knitting his first sweater. And then he branched out into making socks, and designing his own hats. And kept knitting, and spinning, and knitting some more...
He gives everything away to friends or enthusiastic admirers of his work because he just loves doing this. He even takes his knitting projects to work (he's one of the partners at Osterman & Burke, an accounting firm in Barre), and can be found busily knitting away while taking a lunch or coffee break. His work is wonderful and earthy and creative, and we love it that he enjoys his spinning and the fruit of it so very much.
