Last week I was in Victoria, attending the Master Spinner Level 1, class as part of the Victoria Fibre Festival 2009. It was a great course and covered the spinning process from raw fleece, washing, dyeing, carding, spinning to plying the final product. There were six other participants in the class, all of whom had been spinning for sometime...I was the only complete newbie. It was a little daunting at first, but my teacher was fantastic and the other spinners gave me lots of tips and support.We got to sample many different kinds of fleece including Jacob, Cotswold, Romney, Merino and Icelandic. This is my very first skein and it's a Jacob...
It's pretty lumpy I admit...but by the end of the week...I was spinning silk! This is Tussah silk mixed with merino...
We also learned about using natural dyes including carrot tops, onion skins, marigolds, coccineal and pomegranate....
such a beautiful array of colour, don't you think?I rented a wheel while I was in Victoria...so now I have to figure out how to use my own wheel...
after I get caught up on my garden, etc, etc!
