WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF SPINNING PLANT FIBERS!
Joan's Upcoming 2023 Summer Classes on the East Coast
June 23-25, 2023
Monticello, Florida - Seven Hills Handweavers Guild
Spinning & Dyeing Cotton & Hemp Workshop
Students must have basic spinning skills and know their wheel.
For information contact: Ramona at rapweaver@embarqmail.com
July 7, 2023
Pawtucket, Rhode Island
Spinning Hemp & Bio-Engineered Fibers Workshop
For information contact: Betsy at newfolkie@juno.com.
July 8-9, 2023
Pawtucket, Rhode Island
Cotton Spinning Made Easy
Students should have basic spinning skills and be comfortable with their wheel.
For information contact: Betsy at newfolkie@juno.com.
July 15-16, 2023
Portland, Maine Port Fiber Shop
Cotton Spinning Made Easy Workshop
Students should have basic spinning kills and be comforable with their wheel.For information contact: Casey@Portfiber@gmail.com
"EASY TO SPIN" COTTON IS NOW AVAILABLE THROUGH LUNATIC FRINGE YARNS
TEACHING
Joan Ruane was first a teacher and then a fiber artist. Her love of teaching shows when ever she has a chance to teach spinning, weaving or even a little dyeing. Seeing the need for BEGINNING classes, and her love of teaching beginners, has brought her to start beginning classes locally as well as to bring in teachers to teach advance classes.
Realizing that the guilds and conferences often favor bringing in advance classes, Joan wants to offer new people the opportunity to take beginning classes so they can learn the basic fiber art skills, and then be able to move on to advance classes.
Southwest Corner will be offering several classes during 2022 and then will bring in complimentary advanced classes in the winter of 2023. Already Amy Tyler, who teaches advanced spinning techniques, is scheduled to teach in Tucson January 13-15, 2023. Details for her class will be posted on the website soon.
If you or a group of friends are interested in a fiber art class, please let Joan know by emailing or speaking with her so she can accommodate the needs of fiber interested folks who want to learn or even re-learn a new skill. Contact her at spincotton@yahoo.com or text 520-335-4113.
Welcome Julie D to the Cotton Spinning World!
Proud to announce that Julie Drogsvold will be joining me in helping to spread the word that “cotton is easy to spin”.
From the moment I showed Julie how to spin cotton, I knew she was a natural. Over the next few years I watched her raising both a daughter and an angora rabbit business. Her great energy and teaching skills stood out to me. Julie is creative and productive and not afraid of hard work. She loves traveling and meeting new people.
Julie has been raising cotton in her backyard garden and learning from the seed through to the finished garment what cotton is all about. Her college training has given her the skills to teach and work with both beginners and advanced spinners.
Learn more about Julie Drogsvold by going to www.tangledyarnfarms.com or e-mail her at tangledyarnfarms@gmail.com. For a quick response you can text her at 520-216-8767.
MAGAZINE ARTICLES
Here are some new articles to check out, hope you enjoy them!
- “Spinning Hemp Fibre.” The Wheel, by Ashford Wheels & Looms (Issue #32| 2020-2021)
- “Solar Dyeing.” Spin Off, by Long Thread (Spring 2021)
- “Spinning Off the Point on My E-Spinner” PLY Magazine, by Jacey Boggs Faulkner (Summer 2021)
SOLAR DYEING USING CUSHING PERFECTION DYES
Recently I have begun doing some experiments with solar dyeing. Living in the Southwestern United States, there is ample opportunity to use the sun to help dye cotton fiber. Read more...
EASY-TO-SPIN COTTON & WHERE TO FIND IT
Back in the late 60’s and early 70’s when Harry and Olive Linder started teaching cotton spinning the only cotton available to them for their classes was a bale, 480 lbs., of ginned cotton from the local gin in Phoenix, AZ. They would take off wafers depending of how many where in their classes. At that time almost all spinning wheels only had one ratio and that was 6-1. Cotton carders where hard to come by and thus students had to use wool carders. All spinning instructional books said was “cotton is hard to spin”!
When Harry could no longer travel and they asked me to carry on the teaching of cotton spinning, I bought bales of Acala, Pima and Sea Island ginned cotton but soon learned that spinners wanted something already prepared for them to spin. I also learned that commercially cotton was carded and stretched to such an extent for electric commercial spinning gins, that it had no crimp left in it.
That meant I needed to find a place to have it just run through the carding machine. This I did and it was perfect and so I called the sliver “Easy to Spin”. For several years I sold it until my teaching demand made it impossible to do both. Now, you can order this cotton sliver from LUNATIC FRINGE YARNS.They have a lovely selection of colors and types: Brown Pima, Cinnamon Brown, Green, White Acala, White Pima, and Sea Island White.
WEAVING WITH HANDSPUN SINGLES…WARP AND WEFT
Weaving with handspun cotton singles presents its own challenges and rewards! Over the summer I wove up a scarf using handspun singles and wrote up a description of my project step by step as I worked it through.
I was able to create a completely handspun and handwoven cotton singles scarf that I'm very happy with! When it was finished, it was wonderful to see and FEEL this scarf in my hands and thought I would share my experiences. Here is a review of what I did. More...
TAKLI SPINNING - WHAT MAKES IT SO SPECIAL?
The takli is a small support-style spindle that is easily carried from place to place. Because of the high whorl speed it can attain, it is the perfect tool for spinning cotton - you can spin a much finer diameter yarn on the takli than is possible to spin using a wheel. And don't let the small size fool you - you can spin a great deal of yarn in a short time. Joan used takli-spun yarn for the warp on the green blouse described in the article "My Green Blouse"! More...