I enrolled in a spinning class with a college friend who recently moved to the area. The local yarn store hosts a two-session class with a very nice guy named Aaron. He somehow keeps a calm, even tone while all of his pupils are simultaneously creating massive wool nests and tangling their wheels up in ridiculous ways.
The shop rents wheels to students, I got an Ashford Traditional (below right) and Anna got an Ashford Kiwi. I tried them both. The Kiwi is easier to keep going the correct direction, but my foot synchronization was off and I kept speeding up while using it. I've established a nice, nearly comatose treadling pace on the Traditional.
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| Two Ashford spinning wheels in the dart room. |
Our homework between classes is to fill two bobbins with yarn. During the second class we'll learn to ply them together. My first bobbin has quite a few corkscrews, I had some trouble getting my braking tension set properly. I've dialed it in better and I'm pretty pleased with the second bobbin.
I was wondering to myself how long it would be before I rate colorful roving. Then at second Thanksgiving Anna kindly gave me some pretty purple stuff from her stash. I tried co-spinning it with some of the class roving. That was pretty tough. The purple was harder to draft so I kept ending up with patches of only one color. There must be some technique to blending the rovings. I'm not sure I love the candy-cane look of purple on white but it might be nice with a more subtle color difference.
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| First bobbin of yarn. I think this is the Corriedale. |
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| Fun purple and grey gift-roving. |
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| My second bobbin, probably Falkland. Half full with some purple and white candy-cane. |
