CNCH

This weekend was CNCH, the Conference of Northern California Handweavers.  I had a great time, took wonderful classes, strolled the market place, visited with old friends and made new ones.  The highlight of my weekend was the 9 hours of instruction I was participate in.  I took 3 classes taught by Judith MacKenzie McQuin: Spinning a Fine Thread, Spinning for Color and Fat Fulled and Fabulous.  Judith is an absolute wealth of information and if you ever have the opportunity to take a class from her I highly recommend it.  I also love her book: "The Intentional Spinner." 

In Spinning a fine thread we learned how to adjust our wheels to spin a fine, and very fine, yarn.  I have spun fine yarns before but nothing of this caliber.  It was a real treat working with the fine fibers she supplied us with to create these fine yarns.  First a baby alapaca, silk cashmere and even bison.  After a break for lunch and travels around the market I enjoyed an afternoon of Spinning for color.  We chose 5 different colored rovings to create a marled yarn and learned a new technique for spinning across the different rovings for a special effect.  We moved on and learned to cable these yarns.  We also made specialty yarns using fluff from an aplaca blend batt and mohair curls.

Sunday we went to the opposite end of the spectrum and made bulky yarns.  At one time, when I was a new spinner, making bulky yarns was easy, now it is a bigger challenge.  Again, learning how to properly adjust the wheel is key in making the yarn you want.  Next I want to take Judith's wheel mechanics class...
I will be posting photos of the practice yarns and then creating my own yarns, some of which will find their way into my etsy shop.

The Saturday night banquet was great fun, as was the presentation by Syne Mitchell, creator and editor of weavezine, check it out at www.weavezine.com. 

Spring!

I just got back from visiting family in New York and Rhode Island. In one week we went from winter to spring. It was cold when I arrived, then the rains came. It rained and rained and rained; roads flooded, train service was curtailed and we had plenty of time to stay in the house and work on craft projects. The dining room table was transformed into a workshop. I was busy making beaded stitchmarkers, earrings featuring sheep, spinning wheels and knitting charms. It was fun and relaxing. When the rains stopped the sun came out and the weather really warmed up so we went on a little road trip to visit my niece and bring my daughter back to school in Rhode Island. Unfortunately, our favorite place to buy jewelry supplies, Wolf Myrow, was flooded due to the rains and was closed. Hopefully they will dry out with minimal damage to their wonderful and eclectic stock.

The etsy shop is stocked and now that I am back I have more items to photo and list. Stay tuned.
Here are some photos of some of the natural dyed yarns that I am in the process of posting.
www.twistedsun.etsy.com

 ... and yummy merino sea cell