On the 22nd of September we delved into charming world of wool spinning.
Our community got a priceless opportunity to learn from wonderful Ann Johnson, Regional Leader of the Association of Guilds of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers for Scotland and Northern Ireland, featured on BBC, and her colleague by Spinning Club, Janis Henderson.
Ann Johnson, instructing a student
Janis Henderson, instructing a student
The students received comprehensive in-depth training on how to use spinning wheels, on types of spinning equipment, and, to our delight, all successfully managed to spin beautiful yarn!
Results of our students were simply outstanding! Couldn’t be more proud of them!
And if you think, it is that easy - to learn to spin in an hour, it means you never tried it yourself!
Spinning requires great coordination and concentration: your feet and your hands must move in different patterns and with different speed. You must be in control of the wheel motion, its speed and direction, while concentrating on feeding wool and creating correct tension and thickness of thread.
Like all slow crafts, spinning is highly therapeutic and is a wonderful occupation to improve mental wellbeing.
Our spinning day was open to public, and we had a lot of interactive activities for attendants to occupy themselves with, apart from watching the spinning process.
Quizzes, sample fibres and challenges - for any age there was something interesting to do!
We also had an opportunity to check the impressive library that our instructors shared with us for the day, all about fibres and spinning.
And of course, everyone had a chance to admire beautiful woolly creations from our masters Ann and Janis - proudly spun, dyed and woven or knitted here, in the Highlands, from our local sheep wool.
We express our deepest admiration and gratitude to Ann Johnson and Janis Henderson for the work they do to popularize wool crafts and spinning in Caithness, and for organizing and running this fantastic event.
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