KnitMe

Gig Harbor review - Spinning with Judith

I spent 4 wonderful days last Thursday through Sunday at the Winter Retreat at Gig Harbor (Washington State), which is on the Kitsap Peninsula just west of Tacoma, WA. This is a conference put on by Madrona Fiber Arts every February, with the main focus on knitting classes, but also including other fiber arts. There are perhaps a couple hundred participants, and a nice mix of national and local instructors. We have a lot of truly excellent local talent here in our neck of the woods!

I took up spinning a little over a year ago, and took classes at Gig Harbor last year from Judith MacKenzie-McCuin. I was able to continue my education in my new interest this year, with the added advantage of a year's practice under my belt.

My first two days were again spent with Judith MacKenzie-McCuin. All I can say is, if you are interested in spinning, fiber preparation, raising animals, textile history, weaving, or just about anything related to textile arts - run, do not walk, to take a class from this woman.

Day One was "Choosing, Preparing and Spinning Shetland Fleece." Judith brought an assortment of fleeces for us to look at, and we were able to take away a handful of each to play with later!

This is a primitive breed with (usually) a double coat. The outer coat is hair like, the undercoat downy and soft. We learned a lot about raising and shearing these sheep. The wool tends to not be very greasy or waxy due to the double coat, which keeps the sheep dry. The outer coat stays constant, but the inner downy coat sheds out once a year (called "rooing"), they used to shed all year round but are now bred to shed the coat in a 2-week period in late spring. Judith said it is best to shear after the "rise" when the wool twists and makes the "roo line". When looking at a fleece, try to identify the roo line, which is ideally close to the cut end, as anything below the roo line will pull off.

"Discontinuous growth" is a primitive trait and is genetically linked to interesting color in the fleece. Therefore, Shetland sheep that have been bred to be more single coated (to make for easier processing of the wool) also tend to lose the interesting color variations. There are at least 8 colors found in the double coated sheep, ranging from chocolate brown, true black, white, and gray (which is the most rare color, called "emsket").

We were put to work spinning some roving from the flock that Judith manages in Montana. This flock of 450 sheep is the largest in the U.S. of this breed. She had us spin semi-woolen, in which you let the twist run into the web (roving or fiber mass) but pull up into the wheel with your other hand. You don't draft back with the hand holding the fiber, as with true woolen spinning. This was new to me and I needed a lot of practice! I also needed to learn to adjust my spinning wheel to pull in a lot more gently. Judith said this is a good method for any crimpy, downy fleece (3" or shorter fibers) when you want loft, as for knitting yarn. She also wants us to make a 3-ply for knitting, which means I need to learn to spin the singles finer!

She told us a lot more about how to choose a fleece, how to wash it, and demonstrated different ways of preparing the fiber for spinning, including how to blend with alpaca and silk. She brought in her big motorized drum carder and showed us how to use it to separate the hair-like outer coat from the undercoat. She just held on to the outer coat end, flicked the cut end onto the carder, and let it pull it out.

The outer coat fiber can be spun worsted and used for anything that requires a strong coarse fiber: crochet bags, weaving into baskets, carpet warp - or sails!

On Day Two, I took 2 half day classes with Judith. The first one was basically "all about Turkish carpets." In her past, Judith has done a lot of textile conservation work, including repairing many fine hand-tied carpets in Turkey, and has traveled extensively in Turkey and Spain. She gave us a slide show, then talked about the different types of fiber and spinning that must be done to create the warp, pile (tied knots), and filler yarn in the weft that is used between rows of knots. We were able to tie a few knots as well. I don't know if I ever want to make a carpet, but I came away with a knowledge of what to look for when buying a carpet, and an appreciation for the incredible amount of work and tradition that goes into this craft.

In the afternoon, there was another class called "Spinning with Yak." Actually, we spun with yak, camel down, American bison, cashmere, and de-haired llama. These are all the undercoats from these animals, and amazingly fine, soft and short fibers. We again spun semi-woolen. I was having a h*ll of a time with this stuff and finally Judith came and adjusted my wheel for me (she did this for a lot of others in the class, too). I have been spinning with way too much tension in both the drive band and the tension spring. Once she took all the tension off, and working with a much smaller whorl than I am used to (to slow down the take-up) I was able to spin a very fine thread indeed.

There was a lot more to this class, including how to hand card the yak fiber (more a tapping than a carding motion), how to make a "puni" off the hand card for short and fine fiber, adding short cut bits of sari silk to yak on the hand card to create a novelty yarn, how to finish the yarn, etc.

All of this, both days, interspersed with many lovely and interesting stories! Also, a visitor from Florida:

Unfortunately, the picture of me with the visitor came out with me looking like a drunken sailor, so no you aren't going to see that one!

Katie

Posted by at February 23, 2005 06:50 PM