Core spinning

Today we went to Five Counties Seminar, an event held by the guilds of spinners and weavers from (you guessed it) five counties. There are eight guilds altogether from around the Golden Horseshoe, Guelph and Waterloo Region.

I took a core spinning workshop taught by Lisa of Oscar & Sophia Handmade Wearables. One of the reasons I wanted to learn to spin in the first place was I so I could make art yarns, so today brought me a whole lot closer to that goal, and it was a lot of fun.

Core spinning means wrapping another fibre, in this case a colourful mixed batt, around a core yarn which becomes completely obscured. Lisa demonstrated how to ply the yarn and also how to auto wrap but we were not set up to do so in the workshop. So I came home and did it right away to fix it in my brain. I plied it with some pale gold silk weaving yarn. The plying gives this yarn its coiled appearance. At the same time I auto-wrapped it with some glittery gold mohair lace-weight Rowan yarn. Together the plying and auto wrap yarns give it the gilded appearance.

We didn't get to choose the batts we used for the workshop (numbers were drawn from a pot). The one I picked was a little wild even by my standards. I love using bright colours, but I'm not keen on neons. Still it was good to be pushed outside the box, and I'm inspired to try using some crazy colours of my own choosing. In fact I've already started another skein from an art batt I purchased today.

Today was great therapy. I'm in an excellent mood.