Design For The Terrified - Creative Spinning Workshop with Alison Daykin

Spinning can be quite a solitary activity so it was lovely that my wheel was one of fourteen in a room today.  There is always so much to learn by sharing and comparing with others.  We hopped Guilds and went to Stratford Upon Avon to their 'Creative Spinning' Workshop.  We were made very welcome and everyone was so kind and friendly.  Guilds are a great place to learn with members of all ages and ability.

 I view Alison Daykin as my 'Spinning' Guru, I have been to one of her workshops before and I really admire her work, so I was very enthusiastic about taking part in today's workshop.  Alison demonstrated slub yarns, snarl yarns, making 'creative' batts with hands carders and drum carders and we had a demonstration with the Ashford Wild Carder.

The Ashford Wild Drum Carder is a seriously desirable piece of kit.  It is robust enough to cope with large quantities of various fibres and materials.  It has a hefty price tag though in my opinion.

Last night Alison gave a two hour talk about her 'Methods for Designing' yarn or woven cloth.  The key skill is observation.  She gave us many ideas and examples for enlarging, collage, working out colour and texture proportions, mark making and recording.  The above piece is my Mom's work.  She chose a greetings card with Sweet Peas on it.  She then made written notes recording any of her thoughts about the colours and textures in the image.  Using water colours she then created a colour palette to work from.

There was a huge stash of fibres to work from and we didn't travel light.  We did not have the messiest work area though but we tried hard to get this accolade.  I think my Mom did a fantastic job and I really loved the sample of Yarn she created, I think it is very pretty and an excellent colour match for the picture.  It is a confidence boost to have your work admired by others.

This was not our work space but I think it is fantastic.  This was also my favourite wheel in the room.  I have no idea what it is but I thought it was beautiful, it has been painted with a delicate Holly design and it had some enormous bobbins.

Here is my trusty little wheel, oh and my shoes!  I like to spin barefoot or wearing my special 'Spinning Socks'!  I chose a picture of some orange Iris, I did not paint my palette but blended my fibre to match my colours using my handcarders.

I experimented with three yarns, one colour blend, one with snippets of the first yarn added to the rolag and spun into singles and finally my first slub yarn.  I managed to use some of the fibre from my Adventures in Dyeing.  Slubs are great fun for adding texture and effect to the yarn but I found it tricky to do.  I understand the method now though for future reference.

Here is a closer shot of my slub yarn (Sorry it could be clearer I know!);

Alison also dyes her own yarns and sells a wide range of natural dyes, Pure Tinctoria.

After last weeks 'Birmingham and District Guilds' Dyers Picnic I decided to treat myself to some Natural Indigo and Red Lac.  I wonder what colour I can turn my hands with those!  I had a really enjoyable day and took on board some new ideas and skills.  I hope to tag along with the 'Stratford Guild' again sometime.

Creative Spinning and Intertwined

I thought I would quickly share two of my favourite spinning books.  Creative Spinning is a lovely book to read and look at.  It talks you through the basics of spinning right up to spinning unusual yarns based upon a Design Focus.  The photographs used for design focus in this book are beautiful, 'Sunset', 'Lapis Lazuli', 'Seedling' and 'Driftwood' to name but a few and the resulting 30 yarn projects are fascinating.  It discusses colour, texture, techniques and a variety of fibres, even including Possum fur.  I was Lucky enough to go to a WSD Guild workshop with Alison Daykin and it was really inspirational to see what could be achieved.  I had already spun a Yarn using Daffodils as the design focus and after working in a group with Alison I went on to spin my first 'Beaded' Yarn.  View Alison Daykin's Blog 'The Willington Weaver' here.

 

This is the second book and I could not recommend it enough.  Lexi Boeger liberates spinning in a way I have not seen before.  It freed me up as a novice spinner to appreciate anything goes, as long as I like it.  Lexi spins some fantastic 'Art' yarns using materials including recycled paper, old wrappers and audio cassette tape.  She uses yarn as a medium for personal expression.  My favourite project from this book is 'Ghost Town Zombie Hat' the yarn includes washers, nuts, springs and skull beads.  There is also a section called 'Crazy Carding' to assist you with creating wild 'Art' batts.  Pluckyfluff is the home of Lexi's website.  Youtube also has videos of Lexi's 'Extreme' spinning and yarn activities including:

Cement Mixer powered spindle

and this looks really fun to me!

Giant skein winding (winding 10.5 miles of yarn into a 'Giant Skein').

This Giant skein believed to be the largest in the world, is made from donated skeins of handspun yarn from fans and followers of Lexi's work.

Birmingham and District Guild Weavers Spinners and Dyers - Colour Play Workshop

Today the Guild meeting was exactly what it said...Colour Play with Gillian Shepherd.  I got the chance to play with the biggest stash of yarn and fibre I have ever seen.  I am sure Gill should be in the Guinness Book of Records for the most stash squished into a car!  The morning began with a Powerpoint about colour theory.  The Colour Wheel, Primary, Secondary and Tertiary colours.  We also looked at tints and shades.  We explored analogous colours (those that are adjacent to each other on the colour wheel) and complimentary colours (those which are opposite each other on the colour wheel).  I can't even say analogous.  I am sure I will play with colour mixing and my little tin of water colours. 
     We were given 'words' or 'phrases' to explore such as 'An Evening by the fire', 'The Beach', 'The rainy Canal', 'A moment of Anger', 'The Misty Morning',  'A Babies Bottom', 'The Naughty Dog', 'Victory' and 'The Lovely Duck'.  We each had one of these titles for the morning.  There were four 'Play Stations'  Knitting, Weaving, Spinning and carding and dying.  I played with hand carders and briefly with a spindle.  I hope the photograph of my fibre is screaming...The Lovely Duck at you!  My Mom had 'Victory'  I will see if she will let me photograph it tomorrow so I can show you.  We only had the pictures in our head to use and we were asked to pick three analogous colours and one complimentary to explore.  I really think I have inheritted my Dad's colour blindness! 
     I was thinking Mallard and tried to do my best to card 'The Lovely Duck'.  I used Green/blues or blue/greens with a bit of purple for the complimentary I used a bit of orangey brown.   See...

After the morning session we had lunch and then returned for a show and tell.  I didn't take photographs of other peoples work so it is a bit hard to tell without the show.  'The Naughty Dog' was interpretted in weaving, there were some Jack Russell colours, green grass and blood, as one of the member's dog had bitten her husband this week!  It was a dramatic textile.  'The Evening by the Fire' was interpreted on cotton using Dye crayons and Dye paint for a more vivid colour and some hand painted yarn was also made using 'An Evening by the Fire' colours.  I tried again to conquer my struggle with the spindle, but I was not Victorious.  My Mom's 'Victory' was a rather funky yarn with Reds,purply pinks, green and green Angelina sparkle.  Mom and I seemed to burn ourselves out with creativity and felt a bit peaky so we left early today.  Us creative/Arty types put our heart and soul into it!  I had to have a nap this afternoon and I bet my Mom did too!  Tomorrow I may spin my Lucky Ducky fibre and I also hope to capture 'Victory' to show you.

My first Spin with fleece - Hebridean fleece

     The Hebridean sheep as its name implies originates from the west coast islands of Scotland.  They Have thick weather proof fleeces that are usually black,they can be brown and can go grey with old age.

I did not have any idea about fleece or breeds of sheep when I became obsessed with the idea of learning to spin.  In usual 'Lucy' fashion I couldn't wait and needed fleece like yesterday...so I blindly ordered off Ebay.  I was expecting a nice bag of soft woolly fleece, what I got was a hairy mass of stinky stuff! 

     The above photograph is of raw Hebridean fleece, not the one I had, which seemed much hairier, if you can imagine a Yeti pelt you wouldn't be far off.  The dog thought it was wonderful but it actually made me quite squeamish and it kind of spooked me as it looked like it was going to breath and crawl off.  Can you tell I am a thoroughbred Townie? 
      Determined I set about scouring the fleece it had several washes in Eco Soap and took a good couple of hours, soaking, rinsing and repeating.  I dried it in pillow cases hung on the line and then in the house on radiators.  I have never washed fleece on a warm Summers day, which would be the obvious option.   
      My next job was to card the fleece, I have Ashford Hand Carders.  Who needs the Gym when you have these bicep builders?  Lets just say it made my shoulders ache a little!  Determined in my spinning mission I bravely battled on. 

I still don't think I have mastered the art of spinning, but I seem to be delighted with what ever I create.  Learning to spin with Hebridean produced a thick and fairly coarse yarn.  I have seen beatifully spun, fine Hebridean yarn so I did not do it Justice at all.  I did mange to knit myself a pair of socks, my first ever pair of socks with my first ever handspun.  The resulting fabric certainly was unique.  They literally gave me blisters to knit.  The socks stand up on their own like a sculpture.  I have called them bulletproof.  I think they would be good in the construction industry in place of steel toe capped boots.

These Beauties were completed Dec 09

Handspun Daffodil Yarn - Creative Spring Spinning

The Jonquils in the garden are now showing strong shoots, they are very pretty when they are in bloom  for quite a number of weeks during spring.  Each year they increase in number.  This picture was taken last year.  For a competition with Handspinner.co.uk readers were invited to spin a yarn that reflected the image and colour of a daffodil.  There were some fantastic art yarn entries.  I used Corriedale fibre and blended Green and Yellow using my Ashford Hand Carders.  I spun varieagated singles, getting lots of practice with colour changes.  Then plied the two singles.  The competition was judged by Alison Daykin the Author of 'Creative Spinning'. 

http://willingtonweaver.blogspot.com/



  Whilst I did not win the competition I recieved some encouraging comments and it was a good learning curve.  Here is a look at some of the other yarns...