Black Sheep Gathering: The Classes

I was really excited to get into Galina Khmeleva's Orenburg lace spinning class. Galina is one of the people who have been instrumental in making the West aware of Orenburg lace, and in bringing the techniques to the United States.

We learned preparation as well as spinning.



This is a supported spindle technique, and I was not good at it. I like to draft with my right hand, but my left hand is too uncoordinated to spin the spindle consistently. I've never had trouble with cotton, but cotton just kinds of drafts itself. I am here to tell you that cashmere doesn't.

In class I tried drafting left-handed, but it wasn't way successful. I will practice both ways and see what turns out to work better for me. I was able to learn how to dribble left-handed when I played basketball. How hard can it be?

While I was in the spinning class, Sue made a super felted bag. I am sorry I didn't get a picture of it. Sue and I took one class together, a mitten design class from JC Briar. I forgot my camera that day so I have no pictures of that either. It was valuable because JC gave us some rules of thumb (haha) to use when making a mitten from scratch, such as how much ease to use and so forth.

Sue's main class in Eugene was not at the Gathering, but was a weaving class she took at the Eugene Textile Center for several hours each on Friday and Saturday, with the finishing on Monday. The topic was collapse weave. Since I am not a weaver, I don't know all the possibilities. However, what Sue did in this class was to combine different fibers that wash differently and use their characteristics to create the look she wanted.

This scarf was warped with two types of wool. One was a standard merino, the other a type of merino called "pony wool" which shrinks more than the regular wool. The weft is silk, which does not shrink when washed.



The finished scarf was about 90" long. The second scarf was done in silk and wool.



Susie, the owner of the Textile Center, then put the scarfs into the washer with a towel for friction, hot water, and a little Synthrapol. After five minutes we were starting to see the pattern begin to appear.





At this point it took only a few minutes more agitation to achieve the effect Sue wanted.





Tomorrow: The loot