An Awesome Weekend

I just spent an AWESOME weekend with Jacey Boggs in her spinning workshop. It was an amazing weekend & also a very challenging one for me.

I knew that this workshop will be beyond my spinning capabilities as I have only started spinning 10 months ago but I did not want to miss this excellent opportunity, so I enrolled.

Jacey is an amazing teacher & she makes everything looks so easy. On the 1st day, we had to spin thin & thick yarn & I was struggling to do it as I have only been spinning thin yarn eversince I started spinning. We were taught different hand movements & trying to co-ordinate the hands & the feet was a difficult task.

It was also an experience walking around & admiring the different wheels in the workshop. There were 5 Ladybugs (including mine) & there were several Ashfords, Majacrafts & even 3 e-spinners. We also had a demo on Jacey's wheel which is a Lendrum & it is an amazing wheel.

I went home after the 1st day with aches all over the body. The 2nd day went better as I slowly managed some of the techniques & was able to produce some results. I never realised that spinning can be so technical & innovative.

I came home with these mini skeins of my handspun .....

..... coils, corespin, auto wrap, cocoons.

I love the look of these coils .... they are not perfect but they look good to me.

but my favorite are these cocoons as it's one technique that I managed to do well.

Although I may not have learnt everything that Jacey taught in the 2 days but I have gained an invaluable insight to some amazing spinning techniques. I am so glad that I went for this workshop as it is AWESOME ! Jacey mentioned that she may come back again next year & I hope so as I want to go to her workshop again.

Gifts Knitting

I have been doing lots of knitting but not for myself. But I do love to knit for others especially for those who appreciate hand knitting.

Gift #1 - Another contagious cowl for a friend's birthday. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture as I was in a hurry to give it to her (it was 1 month after her birthday)

Gift #2 - My 3rd contagious cowl for Lynette. She choose the yarn (Yarn Pirate sock yarn) from my stash & I

knitted with 2 strands together & 1 skein was enough for this longer cowl.

Gift #3 - My own design, Cathedral Shawl for my dear neighbor (Pam) who is always taking care of my garden. I used Knit Picks Shadow (2ply merino) & it's a lovely yarn to knit with. This yarn has been in my stash for 2 years & this is the 1st time that I am using it.

Gift #4 - Again my own design, Treasure Lace for Lydia who wanted a scarf in Malabrigo Lace. She wore my Treasure Lace which was knitted in Malabrigo Lace & loves the feel of the yarn. Again, I went stash hunting & found 2 skeins in purple. Lydia wanted a plain shawl as she does not like too much lace, so I changed the lace edging to a simple chevron pattern & also modified the short rows so that the shawl is narrower & longer. It turns out nice & I even wore it once.

Actually this period of gift knitting gave me time to plan my future projects ......