Spinning Workshop

This morning I headed out to the historic Damascus Fiber Arts School.  It was known for years as the Damascus Pioneer Crafts School, but when it closed some years ago, one of the dedicated teachers took up the torch and kept the school going, with a name change.  Today I took my first class there after wanting to do so for literally decades!  It was a Spinning Workshop.  I have spun for 30 some years but was hoping to enjoy the fellowship of other women and also to have the instructor help me to figure out how to "tune" my wheel as it's a fairly new one for me and has a LOT of adjustment places.  Here is the teacher showing me how to use the Scottish tension on the wheel.  

I was thrilled to see my new blog friend, Gracie, join in and we got to meet in person for the first time!  She's adorable and so sweet!!  Her blog is "Gray Sea Sailor".

And here is my friend from high school, Kevynne (who also has a blog).  She and I reconnected on Facebook and while reading her posts I realized how much we have in common - she's a talented weaver all around artist!!  It's Kevynne who told me about the spinning and basket classes here and encouraged me to join in.  Thank you, Kevynne!  I hadn't seen her since our 20 year reunion, so it was great to see her again! 

I snapped some photos around the school.. here is a Navajo weaving in progress. 

Here are the ladies at work... 

Here is the other weaving room.  There are wonderful weavings hung all around the walls in the school, donated by grateful students. 

Here are some very brightly colored weavings. 

A shot into the kitchen from the weaving room. 

Here is the little shop area in the entry hall.  Yarn for sale! 

The other side with more yarn for sale. 

In my rush to get out of here this morning I forgot my spool rack!  Argh!  So, I had to make a ball of the one ply of white wool I'd spun and then ply it into 2 play using the ball - both ends of the same ball.  It was a good thing to learn to do, but it took up half my class time just getting the spool empty so I could spin. :-)  

Once I'd plied it then I took it off the spool using my old niddy noddy. 

I had several hanks of unspun alpaca to choose from, gray, dark brown and some tan.  But I finally decided on the colorfully dyed hank I got at the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival we went to in the Fall.. remember?  This is Alpaca and Tussah Silk blend!

 Another view of the yarn.  I'm spinning it fairly fine as I will then ply it when I have 2 spools full.

My basket of fiber.  Yum. 

I just shot this photo of the amount of alpaca silk that I got done in the last half of the day.

 I had to soak the white wool I plied today to make it not so curly.  Isn't it fun and home-spun looking? :-)

Here is my wet white yarn.  LOL!  It's not perfect but I actually like the imperfection of it.

I look forward to next week, another workshop.  Then in a few more weeks my basket class here!  I couldn't bear hauling my "big girl camera" today with all the other stuff I had to cart into the school.. so all these photos were taken using my trusty iPhone 4S.  


If you live in the Portland area, I highly recommend taking classes here!  Next I might try some weaving!!  Tomorrow I volunteer at the falls... 


So.. how are you doing?  What's new?  Thanks for coming to visit.  ((hugs)), Teresa :-)