Spinning Wool: Basics and Beyond

This is a very comprehensive spinning course in a small container. It is designed for the beginning to intermediate spinner and allows you to work at your own pace.

Understanding or choosing your wheel is the first topic. A thorough description of the three varieities of spinning wheels concludes with a clear explanation of how the various speed whorls work.

The second section covers basic drafting techniques and size control. There are exercises to help the student choose between drafting styles and pursue different sizes and types of yarn in their spinning.

You will learn about choosing and using various commercially prepared wools plus how to wash, card or comb a fleece you may have purchased from a sheep breeder. The third section clarifies the details of woolen and worsted spinning, with clear instructions.

The last section guides you through the final processes of plying and finishing your yarn. Plying from two bobbins, both ends of a single ball of yarn and the Navajo three ply is carefully presented.

Spinning Cotton, Silk and Flax

When you are ready to tackle new fibers let this workshop be your guide. The introduction helps you adjust your wheel to efficiently spin finer fibers. The easy to follow format introduces each fiber separately. It gives historical points and hints for preparing, spinning and finishing each of the commonly available fiber forms and samples.

You will learn how to spin cotton from the seed or to make your own punis by carding. You will see how to spin a textured yarn from ginned lint or a smooth skein from silvers.

The silk section is the largest and includes preparing and spinning from several forms of silk, cocoons, bells, rovings, bricks and silvers.

Finally, the fiber flax is introduced with techniques for wet spinning natural, bleached or dyed rovings. Line flax is demystified and a simple distoff dressing is demonstrated. Even the tow fibers are carded and spun.

Spinning and Plying Textured Yarns

Now that you are comfortable with the mechanics of spinning, you may be ready for the next challenge, changing the styles of your handspun yarns.

This workshop will teach you how to create several different styles and sizes of yarn from a variety of fibers and preparations. Styles covered will include cabled yarn, soft thick yarns, corespun yarns, spiral, loopy, bouclé and knotted yarns.

Special emphasis will be given to using the different techniques for advantage with painted and blended rovings or different fibers. There will also be a section on duplicating commercial yarns.

This is an intermediate spinning class that shows how to systematically explore and try various options, this will become an excellent reference for your library.