Yesterday I got to spend yet more quality time with Winnie (my spinning wheel) as I was on another one-day spinning course with Sarah Harris at The Spinning Weal in Clevedon, Somerset www.spinningweal.co.uk. This shop and workshop venue is a real Aladdin's cave of all things wool and fibre, well worth a visit if you are in the area. Sarah and David are incredibly knowledgeable about all manner of wheels - as indicated by them instantly recognising Winnie's pedigree, which has most people very confused! (She's a Mark I Ashford Traveller, which were only made between 1977 and 1979, so there's not many about).
Sarah decided that I needed to be technically stretched, so she got me spinning tussah silk, which was lovely and produced beautiful fine lustrous singles which I plied with a Corriedale single (shades of magenta and fuchsia pink blended on the carder to give a luminous berry colour), resulting in a wonderful 'raspberry ripple' yarn. She also handed me a supply of cotton, on the principle that if you can spin cotton you can spin anything - after a certain amount of colourful language I did manage to produce a reasonably amount of a consistent cotton yarn without actually having a nervous breakdown, but I don't think it's an exercise I shall be repeating any time soon!
I also spun some of the Ryeland which I had scoured and carded recently, it is full of noils so takes a while to pick over but when spun woollen makes a really nice, lofty, springy yarn in a glowing white. I quite fancy trying out some natural dyeing on this sometime, as I think it would make lovely winter woollies...
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