Heh, all day at work I was counting down the hours until I could go pick them up.
Think she's happy to be back on her love seat?
Speaking of work, I've heard that 8 people have quit in the last week. Some of them have been out there for 20 years or more, but they just got fed up and found themselves better jobs. The good news is, my stalker wasn't there! It was like having an extra day of vacation.
Now, on to today's topic of discussion, Fiber Fun In The 'Sip classes.
First of all, let me say, I don't like having classes on Thursday. Even though I allowed plenty of time for the drive, there was still a certain amount of anxiety -- particularly when I ran into construction in Canton. Yes, I allowed extra time, but did I allow enough? Did I allow too much? And if so, what am I going to do until the class starts? I can't check into the hotel until 4:00 PM, so that's not an option...
It's the INTJ in me.
Nevertheless, I did get there in plenty of time, but not too terribly early, so it all worked out in the end.
My first class was pin loom weaving on the Zoom Loom, taught by Beverly Anglin. My friend Christi took her class last year, and it looked like so much fun, I started to order a loom online. I just never got around to it. I was thinking, when I knit all those charity hats, you eventually get to a point that you don't have enough yarn for another hat, but it's too much to throw out. If I can make a bunch of squares of the leftover yarn, I can make a blanket. When I saw the class offered again, I immediately signed up for it.
Here we see Beverly instructing one of my classmates in the finer arts of --well, I'm not exactly sure what they were doing. I think she was showing her how to take the completed square off the loom.
At the end of class, I asked if I could take a picture of everyone, so I did.
Over the next few evenings, I got quite a few squares woven.
The one I made out of cotton came in quite handy, since the hotel didn't provide coasters.
Once I got the hang of doing them, I could finish a square in about 20 minutes, and it only takes about 8 yards of yarn per square.
The second class I took Friday morning was Tibetan spindle, taught by Teresa Goatey. I've used drop spindles before, but the Tibetan spindle was new to me. It's much bigger, and you spin it with the point resting on the floor.
She taught us the park and draft method, since it was a class for absolute beginners. Probably a good thing, since I haven't spun -- in any capacity -- in about 4-5 years. I can't believe it's been that long! But it has. I don't think I've spun since I moved into this house in 2015.
Anyway, back to my story. Teresa is the one standing, helping one student wind her single around the spindle.
By the way, her husband makes all the tools, and the fiber came from their own sheep. She even told us the names of those sheep, but I can't remember them. Funny thing, I kept noticing a foul smell, and wondered if I was stinking -- or was it one of my classmates. I finally figured out it was the wool. I think it might have been the lanolin in it, as she said those particular sheep produce a lot of lanolin. Still, it didn't stop me from surreptitiously sniffing my pits from time to time...
This is just a shot of the other two students in the class.
And here is the yarn I made!
We got to keep the spindle and nostepinne.
And I finally learned the proper pronunciation of nostepinne. It's not what I thought it was. Now, never you mind how I'd been pronouncing it. All you need to know is, I can say it correctly now.
That's it for the classes I took this time around. They were so much fun, and hopefully more useful than the ones I took last year. Those were inkle loom and continental knitting, by the way, neither of which I've done anything with since.
Oh, well, they were fun while they lasted.
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