Nexus 4: Hands and Heads

What a week it was! The Midwest Weavers Conference was way too much fun. And exhausting. And wet (it rained most of the time). And full of weaving and fiber inspiration. There is too much to say about it in one blog entry, but let me start here with a few tales about workshop participants.

The Spin-Knit Nexus workshop yielded a lot of interesting yarns. The workshop participants were enthusiastic and inventive. Beth D. learned how to Andean ply. She wanted to have pictures to remind herself of the technique, so she pulled out her smart phone and snapped away. She then emailed me her pictures. Here’s Beth’s hand:

As a good chunk of Day 2 of the workshop, I had folks spin several 2-ply samples skeins, where one ply was from one hand painted combed top, and the other ply was from another hand painted combed top. Each student had roughly 2 ounces of fiber to spin. We made three smooth yarns and four textured yarns. At the end of the day, I suggested that it might be possible to knit a small hat with all the yarns they’d spun. Just a suggestion…..

The next morning, Sherri M. walked in and pulled out a hat that she’d knitted the previous night out of those 7 yarns (plus a tiny bit of some of the other yarn we’d made in the workshop). Whoa! Here she is wearing the hat:

By the way, Sherri is from Kansas. And she is one of the folks who will be coordinating the next Midwest Weavers Conference, “Prairie Winds”, June 21-23, 2013. It’ll be in Emporia, Kansas. I can hardly wait!

Here's a picture of some yarns that students spun on Day 3 of the Nexus workshop:

One more quick story: Julie A. took both the Beginning Spinning workshop and the Blending Colors at the Wheel workshop. When I first met her at the conference, her name tag was flipped around, showing the back side. On the back side was her ticket for the tour to Chassell, Michigan. All I could read was “Chassell Tour”. I thought, “What a lovely name.” So, for most of the week, I called her Chassell. (Once in awhile I’d call her Julie.) Chassell Tour. Don’t you think it’s a nice name? She said she was going to name her spinning wheel Chassell. I think I’ll name my next dog Chassell.