Spinning Retreat

All I can say is that if you ever get a chance to attend a spinning retreat, GO!!!! There were 18 of us in attendance at the DuBose Conference Center in lovely Monteagle. The weather couldn't have been more perfect as Saturday was in the 70's and Sunday was in the low 80's. 

Most all attendees had the traditional spinning wheels, from Kromski, Louet and Ashford to interesting travel wheels.

I had the only Hansen Mini-Spinner and a couple of spinners tried it. I think they liked it, if nothing else, they understood the way it worked a little better. We had fun learning about blending colors, mixing colors, re-arranging the way you pull the fiber apart on a multi-colored braid so that you spin the colors you want in the order you want them in. Lynne showed us how to take a braid apart so that the colors don't get muddy. She also demonstrated how to spin with locks (I still need more practice), planning a project and several other things. But all in all, we were there to spin. We didn't have to worry about breakfast, lunch or dinner as that was being prepared for us and all we had to do was go to the dining room. It couldn't have been more perfect. We concentrated on spinning and learning from each other. My neighbor to my right came all the way from northern NY state and the neighbor to my left drove from Pennsylvania. We had others from Alabama, Indianapolis, and Marietta and of course, the Nashville area.

     I spun this lovely green fiber (I'm trying to break away from my "go to" color of blue, and yes, I did buy some blue fiber too. The multi-color darker green combo is a BFL and the light green mix is a BFL/Tencel mix. Not sure what I'm going to do with it yet but I ended up with a little over 450 yards.

 

 I was given this lovely fiber by Meg. She had dyed it back when she had her own retail shop. I fell in love with it. I have to tell you when I started drafting the fiber, it seemed more white than I had expected. It spun up completely different than I had imagined and I love it! I should have gotten a pic of it when it was still in the braid, but I was so excited I just plainly forgot.

I also experimented in making rolags (this was fun) using fiber I wasn't too particularly excited about which has made their way into my stash over the past year. It was a good way to play with different color blending. I'll be doing this again.