So, I went to the Wild and Woolly Weekend this weekend. I drove up Friday after work, and arrived at the Golden Stage Inn around 9 pm, and mostly I took my bag up to my room, showered, and went to sleep. More about the Inn later….
I woke up early the next morning and met another woman staying at the Inn who was also going to the Weekend, Barbara. Barbara and I talked during the delicious breakfast that Julie and Michael (the owners of the Inn) provided. As it turns out, she’s a spinner as well, and was taking the same classes I was on Saturday. Both classes were taught by Patty Blomgren, a local Vermont spinning instructor.
The first class was Textured Spinning – we went over a few ways to make textured yarn.
The first way was to use some washed but unprocessed fleece – pick and tease apart locks and other fibers, and just use as-is. Then we tried practicing an autowrap. Here’s the yarn I made as a result — it’s definitely textured!
I took the rest of the handfuls of unprocessed yarn and ran them through the drum carder – part of the fun of this workshop was playing with one of three drum carders Patty set up for us. So here is the batt I made with the same stuff as is in the yarn above – I have not spun this up yet, but when I do I will spin it worsted and see how much smoother that yarn can be.
Then I made a colorway I like to call “Creamsicle”:
And I spun it into yarn:
Then I made a thick-and-thin yarn with some targhee from Spunky Eclectic that I’d brought:
Patty had a handout for us, so we’d remember what we did. We did not get to any of the plying techniques officially, but we did make some knots, and I’ve made some bobbles before.
The second class, also with Patty, was corespun yarn. She also provided a handout. These techniques were much more tricky, and we didn’t get to nearly as many.
We did some basic core spinning with commercial yarn as the core. I used a two-ply wool, and found that wrapping roving around was easy once I got the basic motion down and used *very* little fiber. I’ve tried core spinning before and never really got the hang of it. I think the secret really is using a very little bit of roving/top to wrap around the core. Here is some of this first type of core spinning:
I then used the thick and thin yarn around the core to make a different kind of core-spun yarn. The little “beads” or “beehives” in the yarn are the thick parts. The most obvious of these are the three on the very bottom, in blue/brown. There are tighter/less fuzzy ones in the 2nd yarn from the top edge, the red/brown yarn. In this sample I showed a lot of the core on purpose:
I’m working on the rest of the thick and thin targhee, core spinning it over a core where I’m trying not to show the core. It’s mostly working:
It’s not totally perfect, but it’s looking good.
All of the yarn is very kinky when I first spin it. I wasn’t able to let any of this rest, as I just spun it this weekend, but I did wash the samples, and dry them under tension – I don’t normally do this, because it will just re-kink up on washing, but I wanted to see what the yarn would look like when it was less kinky. The stuff still on the bobbin is very kinky, and I’ll probably let it rest, and then wash it.
Unfortunately, the vendor times were exactly the same as the classes, so I did not get a chance to shop on Saturday. Luckily, I noticed this ahead of time, so I figured Sunday would be for shopping. At the end of the class, Patty let us raid her stash, so I took home some firestar, Ashland Bay merino/silk, and hand-dyed corriedale. I did have some fiber I gave away – I let Patty take some of the targhee, and I gave her the rest of my Louet Black Diamond, a carbonized bamboo that I did not enjoy spinning (it felt like spinning chalk powder, and has absolutely zero memory). I also gave Jennifer, a fellow classmate, some silk hankies that I wasn’t enjoying pulling apart to spin.
I did, however, win a door prize – a Knit Local canvas bag:
Saturday night Barbara and I went to DJ’s Restaurant for dinner, which was a good pick (on Julie’s recommendation). After that, I spun by the fireplace for a few hours, practicing what I’d learned that day.
Sunday I woke up, packed up, had breakfast and a nice long conversation with Julie and Michael, checked out and went to the festival again. A few pictures from the Inn:
The record player:
These chickens were crossing the road. I wonder why?
A bunch of teapots at the Inn. I think my favorite is the fish one (just to the right of the cow one):
This was my shopping day, and it was a lot of browsing and also a lot of talking to people. I started out helping a booth set up, and then bought a few magazines (Cast On and Piecework), and some “knit local” stickers and a “knit local” car magnet, some knitty gift tags and a brooch/shawl pin.
I bought a bunch of fiber, including some locally grown Shetland, some hand-dyed Falkland, and a few batts. I also won some flax in another door prize, and got some spinning done. I talked to a LOT of people, including Dave Paul of The Merlin Tree, maker of the HitchHiker and Road Bug spinning wheels. I spun on one and LOVED it, but resisted buying one:
It was a great day, topped off with a visit with a friend in White River Junction, Vermont, then a visit with another friend near Manchester, NH, and then finally home to my husband and dinner.
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