Thursday, May 24

Spinning demo and fresh handspun

Today, I went to a local elementary school with my friends Elizabeth and Jess to demo spinning for pioneer day activities. We each took our traveling spinning wheel, fiber, handspun, and some finished garments to show off. For two hours, we talked about spinning and fielded questions from scores of young kids. They came through in small groups every 10 minutes or so. Some were bored and others were very interested in what we were doing. Thank goodness they let us set up inside. The rest of the activities were outside on the school grounds where the sun was intense, it was very windy, and the temp was heading for 90 degrees. I would have been burned to a crisp inside a half an hour. Our demo was so well received, I expect we'll be invited back next year. It was a lot of fun.

I plyed the pink/peach merino last night. I had to find something new to spin for the demo. I settled on a blue/purple border leicester with some angelina flash in it. Very colorful and easy for the kids to see what I was spinning. (They kept asking if there are sheep with purple fleece. LOL!) This fiber is some I bought at Greencastle in April. It's roving and not top. It's much more of a challenge to spin evenly and, unfortunately, it has a lot of VM in it. My lap was littered with bits of grass and plant materials by the time the spinning demo was over.

Here's a pic of the pink/peach merino skein. Isn't it yummy? It's 2.5 ounces and 265 yards. I wish I had more of it. It was easy to spin and the colors look great plied up.

2 comments:

Lacefreak said...

It really is yummy. Very Sherbert like. It must have been fun to spin and to ply. What will you knit with it?

Melanie said...

Wow, the pink/peach skein is lovely! Gorgeous colours and beautifully spun.