Boot Camp Day 1

What a blast this class is, I’m having such a good time with them. I am teaching a four day fiber Boot Camp at the Newark Museum, in Newark NJ.   I have a couple of art educators, a couple of artists coming from other mediums, and a newly retired student looking for something entertaining in her new life.  Well she found it.  Not only is this group talented, but they get along really well and it is like adult summer camp!

Day one focused on a summary of all of the basic types of fiber, wool, silk, cotton, and linen, along with the “goras”, Angora rabbit, and the fur from the Angora goat, Mohair.  I passed around the silk cocoon, the cotton bole, and the combed linen.  And we looked at the fleece from a few different breeds of sheep.  I had some baby alpaca as well, the first shearing from “Montana” that I purchased in April at the CNCH conference.

Next we carded a stack of rolags, wool carded into rolls which will then be spun.  I owned four sets of carders, and the museum had a couple of pairs.  One of the sets I brought were my deceased Mother-in-law’s grandmother’s carders, and when we used these centuries old carders, we could feel the spirits of all who handled them fill the room.  It was really noticeable!

My weaver friend Virginia, who came on Sunday to help me with the prep, made all the drop spindles we used in the class from pairs of CD’s and 3/8″ rubber grommets.  She slipped a 3/8″ dowel into the grommet hole and put a cup hook on the end.  Then she tied a leader of yarn onto each spindle.

I brought one of the fleeces I picked up from one of my guild buddies who has sheep, and they all dove in and carded up piles of rolags.  Then they began the process of getting the hang of spinning on a drop spindle.  This isn’t really hard to learn, it just takes patience, because in the beginning, everyone spins a fat lumpy cord, and then suddenly, they get it and are spinning a beautiful yarn.  It takes an hour or so for most to get the hang of it, and there is always the star pupil who gets it in a big way and smiles so proudly at themselves

and is hooked for life.

Once they got a few yards on the spindle, the quality of the yarn didn’t really matter,we got out the plastic cups and my private stash of Kool-Aid.  I had ordered a couple of cases of the green and blue Kool-Aid a couple of years ago, it is nearly impossible to find, but I found a grocer online through Amazon that carried it and I stocked up.  Kool-Aid is great for teaching dyeing, it isn’t really toxic, (I’d never actually drink the stuff) and you can dye in the microwave and use your corning pie plates without having to relegate them to the studio.  The dyes are easy to find, except green and blue, and fun to use.  We mixed up plastic tubs of all the colors, and they used spoons and sponge brushes to apply the dyes to their spun yarn, unspun fleece, roving, and commercial wool yarn I picked up at Michael’s.  The place was cookin’ and it smelled wonderful.  We clearly were all having way too much fun!  A great day in spite of the record breaking 100 degree heat wave! Enjoy the photos!