Full day class, offered once

Friday, April 22th – 9am-5pm (noon-2pm break)

Much of the fiber we have access to as hand-spinners comes to us in the form of combed top. Top is a worsted preparation and can spin a very dense yarn, which is great for hard-wearing items like socks or mittens… but what if we want to turn those beautiful hand-dyed braids of fiber into loftier yarns for hats, scarves, or sweaters? This class will explore techniques to introduce more air, loft, and bounce into our handspun yarns. We will discuss differences in drafting techniques for various fiber preparations and ways to modify our fiber preps to make loftier yarn. As we sample, using a yarn balance and other tools, we will measure how changes to our draft and fiber prep influence the loft of our yarn, and how to evaluate our yarns to ensure that we get exactly the characteristics we want for the projects we have in mind.

Skills you will learn:

• Differences between worsted and woolen drafting techniques and fiber preparations
• Spinning semi-woolen from combed top
• Spinning from the fold
• Modifying combed top preparations (fauxlags, carding)
• Measuring the grist of your yarn with a McMorran balance

Materials fee: $20 for fibers

Level: Students should have a good working relationship with their wheel and be capable of spinning a stable, consistent single.