I spent last week on Orcas Island at “spinning camp” with Judith Mackenzie. Like last year, I went with 2 friends from the Methow. We somehow managed to get 3 spinning wheels and our personal luggage into my Honda CR-V, and did our grocery shopping up on the island (they give us one meal a day at lunchtime, but we are on our own for breakfast and dinner, and the cabins have kitchens).
3 Methow gals at camp
Judith in the meeting room
The theme this year was “Let’s Spin It Right”. Basically she gave us a lot of different kinds of fibers to spin and showed one or more ways to make the best use of it. Her new book is out and I would say a lot of things we tried drew on the book. I did buy a copy as there is a lot of great info in there, not just about the various fibers.
“It’s time to look beyond wool, with The Practical Spinner’s Guide: Rare Luxury Fibers! The go-to expert for fiber artists, Judith MacKenzie shares insights into working with uncommon (but readily available) luxury downs in this comprehensive, yet practical, guide for today’s spinners. With her natural voice for story telling that is both engaging and informative, she discusses the history of each of these downs, how they are used today, characteristics unique to each, and where to find them. She also dives deep into the specific spinning techniques for each fiber, knitting and weaving rare fibers, and dying them once spun. From angora to bison, camel to cashmere, there’s a whole world of rare luxury fibers just waiting to be spun!”
The first day she gave us 2 oz. of 60% Polwarth/40% silk roving she had dyed. I wound up buying a second one in a close but more blue color and over the course of the next day or two made this 2-ply yarn which I will use for a lace project:
That day we also played around with spinning silk and ways to combine it with other fibers. She had just received some beautiful darkish red eri silk from India. She showed us a way she had just come up with to combine it with yak fiber. The yak has quite a short fiber length and the silk is much longer, but she laid a light “frosting” on top of the yak and just added some in occasionally. The final effect is a gilded yak singles that you can ply. My sample is so small it isn’t worth photographing (and I need to practice to get it to look better!) but I was quite excited by this idea and intend to pursue it.
She gave us some washed camel undercoat which has all the lengths of fiber, the shorter of which are lost when it is made into top. You can spin this directly, but she also combined it with silk on handcards, which requires cutting the longer silk fiber into shorter lengths. I brought that project home with me as I am not that good with handcards and want to take my time.
They set up the dye cabin towards the end of the week and I did a fair amount of dyeing this year. Several folks were interested in gradient dyeing of skeins of yarn. This involves starting with a low water level, then gradually lowering the fiber into the bath as you add more water.
From home I had brought 8 oz of 60% Polwarth/40% silk roving and Judith helped me dye it in the steam table tray. Basically I assisted and she did the colors!
She has so many years experience she can just pour the dye stock solutions on and get wonderful results. The challenge for me will be doing this on my own and not making a total mud pie out of it. But look at my beautiful roving!
I also did some immersion dyeing of 6 skeins of wool I bought at camp in 2007 from Island Fibers on Lopez Island. Maxine always brings her wares (whole fleeces, dyed rovings, undyed rovings, etc) to camp. They had sent Lopez-Island-raised Coopworth and Romney fleeces to be spun into yarn and after 8 years I had done nothing with it and it was still white. Now with Judith’s help it is a lovely moss green and I have started swatching for a sweater.
It was another inspiring and informative camp with our lovely Judith, teacher and mentor extraordinaire.
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