Taught: October/November 2007 at my LYS (A Dropped Stitch, 360-683-1410)
Teaching again: ply & color, February 2008 at A Dropped Stitch.
This intermediate spinning series covers plying, color, dyeing, technique tips, art yarn and whatever else its students are interested in that we can squeeze in. 4 sessions, 1.5-2.5 hours each, $20 per class includes materials. Students will need to bring: wheel, 2 empty bobbins, niddy-noddy, lazy kate, scissors, pencil/pen, 3x5 cards to save samples on, and items noted for each class; contact me if you’re missing items so I can arrange to have extras on hand.
This is geared to wheel spinners, but could be handled by the avid spindler just fine too.
Session 1: Plying Techniques
- Wraps Per Inch singles -> plied
- Cable 4-ply
- Navajo 3-ply (aka chain ply)
- Thread and commercial eyelash yarn plying
- Boucle
- Diamond ply
- Mixed twist (Z and soft S plied S)
Session 2: Color
- Color and texture ‘nub’ yarn
- Candystripe and faux cable
- Self-striping singles and 2-plies (rolags, cattails, splitting roving)
- Novelty methods for color play: coil, ch’oro/snarl, knop/beehive
- Fractal plying (color changes playing on one another)
- Neutral effects for space-dyed roving
- Space dyeing roving
Session 3: Technical Details
- bring yarns you want to dissect/copy; and fibers you want advice on
- Crimp, WPI, TPI, Twist Angle, grist…
- Spinning soft singles
- Spinning from the fold
- Worsted and woolen
- Repeatable yarn, consistent yarn
- Dissecting commercial yarn
- Correcting yarn
Session 4: Art Yarn
- bring handcards if you have them
- Garneting for effect
- Curly yarn
- Fuzzing
- Beaded yarn
- Spiral bead yarn
- Tornado yarn
- Fiber sandwich
- Felt yarn
There are many additional topics we could touch on, such as: skirting, evaluating, and washing fleece; other dye types and dye methods; carding for color; drop spindling; and even more novelty yarns. Advanced spinning would go into spinning more types of fiber than wool – silk, mohair, cotton, camelid (alpaca etc), cashmere, rare sheep breeds. Other advanced topics – long draw, advanced drop spindling, support spindles, charkhas ... the list is endless!
Do you teach a beyond-beginner spinning class? What are the next steps you teach to intermediate spinners? Leave a comment or post suggestions about the classes listed above -- your input is welcome!