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| My 'teaching'spindles have whorls made from mahogany, 'recycled' from the last wooden fire engine used at Ardrishaig on the West coast of Scotland. A little bit of history that has now introduced many people to spinning |
An Cnoc is the name of the craft shop, a real treasue trove of beautiful and unusual items, many made locally. Mandy, the owner, hosts a knitting group and a crochet group there, and as several of the members were interested in learning to spin, Mandy asked me to do an introductory workshop on drop-spindle spinning. We were joined by two ladies visiting Crieff for the weekend who I think had only found out about the workshop when visiting the shop the day before - an unexpected extra in their weekend away.
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| Working with drum-carded fleece lets the learners spend all their time spinning - but they don't learn how to prepare it, and guess who spends hours carding wool before the workshop! |
With some complete beginners and a couple of spinners who use spinning wheels but wanted to brush up their spindle technique, it was a friendly and chatty group who quickly got to grips with spindles and some fleece that I had drum carded beforehand. Plenty of laughter and a generous supply of tea and cake (thanks Mandy!!) lightened the intense concentration as the learning progressed. By the end of the three hour session everyone had a skein of two-ply yarn that they had spun themself. I'm looking forward to seeing photos of the yarn after it has been washed - and to keeping in touch with this group.
