Category: Spinning
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Painting with fibre
You really can brush ‘paint’ with fibre. This weekend I set up the blending board to help my little people get exposure to actual fibre and what you can do with it. Lucy is only two so I thought a paintbrush would work well and it did! You can pick up various colours of roving…
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Thailand, Laos and the Textile Track – Spin
Just back from the most inspiring and wonderful Textile tour of Northern Thailand and Laos with Active Travel and Valerie Kirk. To see people weaving in almost every village is always inspiring and we visited many minority groups with their own specialty and styles of weaving, spinning, embroidery and dyeing. Beginning in Thailand we visited…
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The Emotional Lure of Paper Yarns
There is a magnetism in paper yarns for weaving and I have had many goes at it. I am probably more interested in actual spun paper yarn than the rolled or folded paper approach but they all have their particular benefits in creating a woven structure. When I was in Kyoto last year I bought…
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Spindle Weaves
This newest baked scarf features lots of spindled singles yarn wound straight off the spindle to the bobbin. It washed up softly and I used a handdyed tencel and textured cotton warp, with wool, mohair, retro reflective yarn, cotton, lycra and silk in the weft. It is long enough to warp twice around the neck…
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Art Yarns vs Weave Spontaneity
Working with 2 shaft tactile weaves in the Saori philosophy has re-ignited my other passion for spinning. Well, anything to do with textiles is in the passion basket anyway. Wooldancer and EweGiveMetheKnits have given me the push with their friendly and inspiring blogs. Then co-incidently, as things do, the Online guild is hosting a blending workshop with…
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Square Whorls – Is it Possible?
Can it be possible that a square rather than round spindle will spin? Well yes, and spin for a longer time. I just bought this spindle from UK Spindlemaker Michael Williams. I have been wanting to buy a special spindle for a long time…but not having access to trying any I have to depend on reviews…
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Newpaper Yarns – What can Spinners do with the News
I’ve always found the prospect of recyling fibres into yarn fascinating. The emergence of something new for a discard seems so noble! Many years ago I wrote a booklet ‘T-Shirt Yarns‘ (PDF File) based on a workshop by Catherine Mick (Canada) on creating beautiful yarns from stretch fabrics. She was an inspiring woman and I…