Patsy Zawistoski Spinning Workshop

Patient, knowledgeable, teaching Patsy on the left, and kind, fun, knowledgeable Beth who is the owner and instructor at her shop, the Spinning Loft. Although painted wool was provided for the class, Patsy allowed me to use some alpaca roving that I had dyed. The class was titled COLOR OPTIONS for HAND SPINNERS.
I am sharing just a few of the highlights of the day that I think you might find interesting:

The class met for a couple of hours the night before so I came a little late and missed the instruction for a Tweed Candy Stripe and a Cable yarn. The first thing Patsy had me do was to wrap some roving around a card so that I could study my colors and patterning.

Before we spun this slub yarn, we hand carded the painted roving to make a neutral color to use to ply our slub yarn. I hope that you can tell from the picture that it was the perfect blend for the yarn. I know that I will do this again to make slub (thick 'n' thin) yarn.

I had never used hand carders before so bought myself a pair from Beth.

The really neat thing on this page is the Faux Boucle'. We spun a fairly firm twist of slub yarn and then plied it with Woolly Nylon Serger Thread that was elastic. As we plied, we pulled the Thread taut and stretched it a little. The Faux Boucle' yarn is the bundle on the right above the green and orange. As soon as I got home I went on line and ordered this Serger Thread that I had never heard of. I'm anxious for it to arrive so that I can play with it.

Navaho ply: I had been practicing this frequently before class. No matter how carefully I weigh my fiber into two equal amounts before I spin, I usually have a little left on one bobbin. That's what I have been using for practice. I actually did quite well in class but don't think that I will ever intentionally Navaho ply a whole skein. If I want 3 ply, I will probably just ply from 3 different bobbins.

Not only did I come home with these record sheets of our spinning experiments, but also a 13 page folder that covered what we did in class and a tutorial on dying roving.

Probably the most important part of the workshop is that it motivated me to leap outside of my nice, comfortable, predictable spinning and be more daring and creative.