Spinning Class, Part 1

Hi Cindy!

Last night was my first spinning class at Fiber Factory. They are a great store with all kinds of fibery goodness. There were also 2 weaving classes going at the same time: Intermediate Navajo Loom and Intro to Theo Moorman.

There are 5 of us in the spinning class. One woman was totally gung-ho to start on the wheels right away and didn't seem to understand that you need to get the basics of drafting first. One woman had an informal lesson a week or two ago when she thought the class was filled so she did pretty good. There was a youngish woman there (19-20?) wanting to spin dog hair. The fourth had wanted to commission some one to spin for her but the backed out so she was taking the class.

And then there was me. I'll be happy just to learn the drop spindle so I can do small bits. And it might take me all four weeks just to get the drafting down. After nearly 2 hours of spinning I probably don't have too many yards of yarn on the spindle and it is pretty chunky and varied. I know, more practice.

The class fee included fiber and a spindle as well as use of carders and a wheel during class. Here you can see my rovings and a bit of the yarn I spun. As you can see it wasn't very much or very pretty.

We also got a small piece of fleece to clean as homework. Margi loved the smell and taste of it. She tried to carry off a small, very dirty piece of it (can we say dung anyone?).

The fleece has been soaking for a while so it is probably time to close this and go check it out. I'm sure that I'll have more to tell you tomorrow.

I'm off to check the fleece and the practice with the spindle.

Later,
A