I took my very first spinning class last night. I've spun for about 3 years now, but was mostly self taught with pointers along the way.
Last night I headed down to The Spinning Loft in Howell to take Intermediate Spinning from Beth.
What a great class!
I knew we were learning about drafting techniques. I spin short draw, either woolen or worsted. Last night I got to add long draw & spinning from the fold to my list. I don't see myself spinning long draw too often, but spinning from the fold will defiantly get use!
The big surprise (other than all those great tidbits you get in a class) was that we got to try these techniques on a whole bunch of fibers so we could see how different techniques work on each fiber.
The fibers were vastly different & covered just about every catagory.
From Left to Right there is:
Soy Silk, BFL, Alpaca, Bombay Silk, Angora, Carbonized Bamboo, Masham, Linen, Optimum, Superwash Merino, Corriedale, and Seacell.
I actually liked spinning the angora top quite a bit. I think my favorite of the night based both on spinning ease and finished yarn was the Blue Faced. The Masham (a long wool breed) was great for spinning long draw & from the fold. Out of the "new" fibers I think the Seacell was the nicest to work with. (Which is great because we're getting some superwash merino & Seacell fiber in at the shop and I really want to spin sock yarn from it).
Next week we cover plying techniques and finishing yarns!