(Photo courtesy of Majacraft)

This week we are bringing a new course announcement (you’ll have to read to the end!!) and we are bringing you the first of our tool features, because, in fiberista language, ‘tool’ = ‘toy’…right?  So to start us off I am impelled to go straight to the Hackle, because it is my favourite. Nope, not because it’s cute or cuddly (it’s not), nor because it’s elegant or graceful, but purely because of what I can do with it, I am utterly in love with the results I can get by lashing those sharp pointy tines with fiber and sparkle, and pulling them back off through the hole in my diz..

It sounds a bit brutal. Not the loving preparation of the softest locks that we might like to imagine,  or the gentle handling of the smoothest silks, nor the dainty delicacy of blending Angelina into these luxurious lengths of fibery goodness.

Even the term used for loading the fiber onto this medieval torture device.. ‘lashing’..  I mean.. seriously?

Ok, so in my head I can get past this little hiccup of unfortunate fiber horror, and all  because of the total deliciousness of the end result. I can recklessly lash my fiber on the spikes and pull it ruthlessly through the diz because this… is what it looks like when its done:

and this;

What I love about making my own roving is that I have total control over how the colours are going to work in it, the amount of each colour I am going to use, the proportions, and their placement in the roving. These are all things I consider before I start using my hackle.

There are at least two different ways to build up layers of colour on a hackle, each creates a different effect in the resulting roving. I can either add layers onto the hackle horizontally, across the width of the hackle, or I can build them up vertically, stacking the colour into pillars of colour. When I layer the colour horizontally across the width of the hackle, then diz it off, there will be stripes running all the way through the roving, along the length of it.

When I stack my colours vertically I can create a roving where the colours come
and go, rather than run consistently through the roving, so you can see blocks of colour in both the roving and the yarn  spun from it.

Probably the toughest part of making hackled roving, is taking it off the hackle through the diz. This bit takes a lot more practice than all that lashing. It’s a bit like spinning, you need to find your rhythm, drafting the fibers gently left to right through the diz to make a smooth roving.

The result is amazing, it’s eye candy, it’s the softest lightest preparation, it is amazing to spin from and perfect for spinning either smooth worsted singles or wrapping around a core (my favourite way to spin it) to create a smooth defined yarn, one that makes the most of the stunning stripes and bling additions.

New Course:

This has been a very brief review of the possibilities that come with a hackle and diz, I am quite certain I could fill an entire chapter with just this kind of fiber preparation, in fact, I DID I first wrote the ‘Blending Colour” ebook that is currently for sale in our shop , and now, I can announce that the next course coming to FiberyGoodness.com is nearly ready, we have re-written this wonderful DIY resource into a full

Colour Blending Course!

The book has been partially rewritten to include a series of exercises that guide the learner through the steps needed to blend new shades, tones, and colours, working from the basis of the three primary colours. The end result for students will be the comprehensive resource ‘colour recipe’ collection that will be built using, and as an extention of, the exercises in the course, AND the best bit? It comes with its own fiber kit for students to work with!

For those who have already purchased the Ebook we  have an ‘Exercise Supplement’ and Fiber Kits for a special price, so no one need miss out.]

Watch this space for more information on the new Course, the release date, and a continuation in our series of tool features. In the meantime, here is my hackle blending video to get you in the mood for some serious lashing!

Suzy

How exciting! I am not only right here at Arlenes kitchen table typing this blogpost (which is already awesomeness), but I have also just made our brand new Fiberygoodness Course LIVE!  This is a course that we have worked on for quite a while, starting with the Blending Colour Ebook (which is in the shop) and then expanding on that with the addition of some super Exercises to get you started on mixing up these fibers into amazing new blends. I LOVE colour blending like this because it creates the most stunning colours with a depth that cant be achieved through simple dyeing. These blended fibers still contain each individual colour that has gone into it, and when you look up close you see them all working together to create this new visual treat. It is almost magical to see the colours blend and melding, and it is just so much fun to experiment with different quantities and colours.

I hope this new course with both the workbook and fiber kit will excite you into creating your own fiber blend rainbow of samples and recipes, and will add to your fiber stash with a whole new dimension of colour!

One of the challenges for Arlene and I when designing our online courses, it taking into account the different ways we all learn. Most of us learn in lots of different ways, we take in what we hear and see, we like to get some hands on practice, we get a book and read everything about a subject… However for most of us, we will find there is always one way that works better..

If you are a visual learner, like me, you just want to SEE it and then you will know how it works! No amount of talking about the theory behind something can replace seeing that actual thing in action. Other people like to really get their hands on something and try it out before they totally feel confident of having understood. Some of us like to learn in groups and others prefer their solitude. Many of us have grown up with words, text books, teachers explaining things, and have become accustomed to finding stuff out that way (and even expect it!).

These are some of the challenges when writing an online course curriculum, how do we cover all the bases? How do we develop something that will support all our different learning styles and give a rich experience that will suit all and any learning style?

Here is an overview of the many ways we learn:

• Visual: You prefer using pictures, colours, and  images.
• Aural (auditor): You prefer using sound and music.
• Verbal (linguistic): You prefer using words, both in speech and writing.
• Physical (kinesthetic): You prefer using your body, hands and sense of touch.
• Logical (mathematical): You prefer using logic, reasoning and systems.
• Social (interpersonal): You prefer to learn in groups or with other people.
• Solitary (intrapersonal): You prefer to work alone and use self-study.

And for those more visual people:

So assuming most of us have a mix of these traits, with maybe one or two dominant ones, Arlene and I have tried to develop our courses to support as many of these different styles as we can. One of the things I am most proud of is the ‘Mind Mapping’ technique I have developed to boost creativity, and to build a solid design formula. Mind mapping is a very visual activity, also quite hands on, it uses words, colours, AND images, and hopefully encourages thinking outside of the box and looking for ways to expand on our first ideas. Golden Fleece Certificate course participants have all had written information on this activity, and we have created a (private) video showing the entire process.  This is one of the ways we hope to share ideas and information in a way that will work for any individual learning styles.

We have also done things like, added lots of colour and images to the module workbooks, created the forums, made a progressive structure to the coursework, and of course, we have started our Live Broadcasts. There is still much more we have in our future plans to enhance and enrich the experience of doing one of our courses.

So now that I have mentioned the Live Broadcast, as another way of sharing coursework, and creative ideas, that is particularly useful for those of us who are visual learners, as well as aural, and this time we also want to add some HANDS ON stuff! For our next broadcast,  on FRIDAY the 13TH of JUNE at 4PM Eastern Central time (thats 10pm European Central time) Arlene and I will be spinning some yarns.. LIVE! A while ago we asked participants to send us their love stories, prompted by an image that we sent with an email. We are going to make our ‘Love Story’ yarns during the broadcast, inspired by those stories..we will also share some exerpts from the stories, as well as take this as an opportunity to demonstrate some techniques.

(Suzy Demo-ing Shelob Silk Hankie wrapping at SWAY Fest – Photo, courtesy of Sara Norine James)

So bring your wheels and your fiber and spin along with us! Get your hands on the fluff! And we will also take requests! If you have any special spin technique that you would like either me (Suzy) or Arlene to demonstrate for you, LIVE on air (pressure much?!) then leave a comment with your request on this post and we will make sure to include it in the Broadcast!

Both the following links should give you an option to view in your local time zone:

Heres the date and YouTube address where you can spin along!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm6ZquNXLEQ

If you also have a Google+ account you can choose to view the Event information and join in from Google+ at this address (you can also leave a comment on the event page with your spin request too! : https://plus.google.com/events/c6qs2fttib4c4hohjh2200pv67o

A few weeks ago in a weekly email that we sent to our first group of participants in the Journey to the Golden Fleece, we included an image of a painting of a knight and a lady.  At that time, they were working on Module 4 of the course which is the “Love” module.  We asked people to send us their interpretations of what they saw as the story the painting was conveying.  We did not say at the time what we were going to do with the stories, only that it would be a surprise.  

We received quite a few emails and a couple of days ago, we held a broadcast to share the stories and also to spin some yarns inspired by the stories.  It was also a great chance for us to share some of the new things coming out here at fiberygoodness.com.  Suzy also demonstrated some requested techniques such as lock spinning and tail spinning.

Here are the yarns we spun as inspired by the stories,  the image, and viewer requests:

One of the most exciting things we shared was about the new online spinning groups we are offering to course participants!  We have three sessions scheduled already.  If you are in the course and would like more information,  please log into the members’ forum and go to the thread regarding the Online Spinning Sessions.  Sessions are limited to ten participants at a time and you can sign up right there for the session you want.  We look forward to seeing you!  We are also developing non-course participant options, so just keep watching here for news about that as it develops.

For those of you that missed the broadcast, you can watch the recorded version via Youtube:

We hope these broadcasts are fun for you to watch.  Even though we are still learning how to make them, we have a good time putting them together for you!

We had our first graduation ceremony for the participants in the Journey to the Golden Fleece last night and it was a so much fun!

For those of us who could not join us for the live event, here is the recorded version.

Here is the link to get the full PDF download of the portfolio of projects.  It includes a few last minute additions that we weren’t able to get into the live presentation on time so be sure to check it out.

We will have another graduation event in a couple of months for the next round of projects — so even though graduation is a bittersweet occasion, we have something to look forward to as well.

Enjoy!

Oh my! I can’t tell you how much Arlene and I have been enjoying the postings from the S3 (Sketch Spin Scribe) students over these last weeks.. WOW! What wonderful spin experiences people have been sharing, and really stunning yarns, and they keep coming!

When Arlene and I developed the Journey to the Golden Fleece course, our focus was on developing creativity, helping people get out of a spinning rut and opening up possibilities through a journey of discovery. It is a relatively introspective course, and we have had some amazing feedback from people who have found new paths and directions for their spinning and their creativity with fiber, from doing that course.

Our next step then, was to create a course that was more specifically spinning oriented, with some solid, step by step spinning instruction and technical information about creating a series of specific yarns. But we love stories We love touching base with our spin-heritage and we LOVE connections. So we created a course that reaches back into the past to other generations of spin sisters and finds the links between them and us. We wrote their stories as illustrations of a time, an art movement, or a culture, and the links created by a common activity: spinning and textiles.

The S3 course has 7 modules, designed to take participants out of their comfort zones, moving from traditional to extreme, and encompassing design elements and approaches to spinning that they may not have already explored. These are opportunities to try out something different, with instructions and inspirations to guide the adventure. And what have we been seeing?! There have been a number of people spinning in the raw for the very first time, with remarkable results! Check out Evanita’s lovely in the grease spinning on her Turkish Spindle:

We have seen people using their S3 scribe book as a philosophers journal, adding in thoughts, images, and their own stories – here is the start of Bryony Garrods Module One pages:

And we have seen people setting up their S3 book pages as the archivist would, keeping a record of their experiences through fiber samples, washed and unwashed locks, spinning samples, and fiber information. Jan Massie is making some lovely art in her Journal

and so is Randi Winters!

And these yarns are so amazing, just look at Diana Klau’s recycled cotton yarn, spun for the third module, its so beautiful!It has also been exciting to see people using different tools, like Jacquie Chalmers lovely supported spindle:

It has also been exciting to see the beauty of the natural coloured yarns, like this from Elizabeth Graves:

and the variety of fibers people have found, like Shari Ahner’s Romney:

And Evanita’s Rambouillet:

Next week Arlene and I will be making the next support video, module 4! And exploring the Arts and Crafts movement as our spin inspirations

It has been marvellous to see the variety of yarns and approaches to the spinning and scribing tasks, and to know that, even though the course is very structured and follows a specific spinning path, people are still making their own mark on the process and developing their own styles and designs within that. I cant wait to see what comes next, or how everyone will decorate their book covers! (here is a pic of Evanita’s covers ready to go!)

So here I am in a New Zealand summer, feeling the heat and enjoying the sunshine, very much aware of the vast climate difference others are experiencing in the northern hemisphere right now! Just a week or so ago I saw images of people ice skating in the streets of northern Holland, bringing back some very fond memories of playing in the snow and ice during the winters I was there. One of my big pleasures at the time was to don my latest mega bulky spun creation, a cowl or a hat were particularly welcome!

 
As you can see to the left and above, 24 meters of this ultra bulky yarn is all you need for an entire cowl, and it was super snuggly and cosy. I made this with a two ply, spun like a traditional yarn, only a giant version of it

Below is another example, yarn I spun and the lovely Pauline of ‘Woool’ in The Hague knitted it up into this gorgeous buttoned cowl.

The yarn Pauline used for this was a bulky single plied with a thread:

Another winter favourite in the Netherlands was also a hat! When the temperatures get below zero but you still want to go out and crunch around on the snow or slip and slide around a frozen pond for more than ten minutes, a hat is a must.. so I used my bulky yarns for these too!

If you would like to have a go at making one of these mega bulky super snuggly cosy hats too, I have made something of a guide on creating them for you to download! Its a guide rather than a ‘pattern’ because in fact the number of stitches and rows you need will be dictated by the thickness of the yarn you have available for it.

Please download your PDF right here!  

If you would like to spin your own bulky yarns, dont forget to sign up for our free newsletter, you will automatically receive the free e-lesson from Jan Massie that will help you learn how to spin from fine to bulky on your wheel, but you will also be one of the first to be informed of the release date for our upcoming special e-Course on Spinning Big Beautiful Bulkies planned for 2016!

I can hear the call of the gulls, the slapping of the waves against the hull and the creak of the timbers as our ship is prepared for the exciting journey ahead. This is the time when anticipation can be tasted in the sea air, the time when adventure comes knocking and we can’t turn away, because we have done this before and we know what could happen…

Yes this is to tell you that my wheel is stowed, my fiber is baled and my tools are at the ready! We are about to relaunch our Flagship course, the Journey to the Golden Fleece Fiber Creativity Course, the spinning course that is different from any other, the one that pushes you to legendary heights of inspiration, offers insights into your own creative wellsprings, and gives you exercises and activities to help you get out of the spinning rut and into creating new yarns!

We have taken some time to relaunch our Journey course, and in that time we have been very busy behind the scenes, streamlining our ship, revisiting our maps and guides, and anticipating how to deal with any of the trials we may come across. We are very excited to be adding a new video component, much like we have done with the S3 Course, we will be adding a video for each module in which Arlene and Suzy discuss the contents of the module, the goals and different pathways there are to them, and of course we will add in any relevant demonstrations of spin technique or fiber prep as well. We will also be hosting pop up class sessions! We will be sure to give enough notice for people to be able to join us and will vary the times to allow people in all the different time zones to have the opportunity to chat about the course with us too.

We have also revised how we will be providing personal feedback on all the yarns sent in from each module and we think you are going to really enjoy the new and exciting format we have chosen for this! When you send us in your yarn photos we will be recording our responses and feedback in video format, its a chance for us to be a bit more personal than email and also to offer you visual support such as sharing examples and showing a technique. We are pretty excited about this and hope its going to be a great addition to the way we can support participants in this course!

With enrolments we will again be supplying the special edition Majacraft circular loom as one of our options, and all graduating students will receive their very own  Majacraft Journey to the Golden Fleece Badge with the class logo and their Certificate of Completion.

Please head on over to our Course page and learn more about this unique Fiber Creativity course!  You can read the testimonials, follow the link to the student galleries, and find out more about the course content. We would love to have you join us on this exciting new edition of our most beloved spin course

And as usual, we will be offering a Scholarship to one Giveaway winner, just share the post and comment below to let us know what kind of yarns you aim to spin this year, and you will go in the draw to win the Golden Fleece Creativity course with special edition loom! If you already signed up, we will refund your registration fee  (Edited to add – closing date for the Giveaway is 1 May!)

Arlene and Suzy

xoxo

This has been a busy but rewarding few weeks at the Woolwench house! (and its wonderful to once again be able to say ‘Woolwench House’ because we are finally proper settled in our own place).  And now we are comfortable I have been working on some Fiberygoodness STUFF!  The first of which is a re-release of our popular Spinning Course “S3”: “Sketch Spin Scribe’. I love this particular course, it has elements of history, story telling, spinning, and book making in it, along with step by step instruction on spinning some specific art yarns!

S3 comes with the wonderful journal covers made for us by Majacraft, into which you can weave, stitch, add a knitted sample, really make your own and turn it into a spinners heirloom! I love the scope of this course, the inspiration from stories, and the historical aspect of exploring a specific era and using that as the yarn concept. Loads more information can be found on our website: HERE

The other thing that has me excited is the release of the Video Course I have been working on for some time, and has been in my head since I was in the middle of writing the Big Book of Fibery Rainbows! This is the first course to use the book as recommended reading, and will be followed by a second. In this course: “Dynamic Colour Blending: Combs and Hackles” we go in depth with the tools, colours, and fibers, to create some magical fairy fiber that is incredible to spin!

These tools will give you the most beautiful ‘combed top’ that really does spin like a dream, but even more, its in  your own unique colour blends! We go through the process of making solid colours (that are solid and yet contain each original colour in the most rich and dynamic way), and then we get into colour management with the hackle, making short and long colour changes, stripes, and combinations of these too.  You really get to make the most of your tools during this course! Dynamic Colour Blending also comes with a bonus video on how I dye fiber for blending, super simple and fun

I really enjoyed making the course videos, there are over 100 minutes of content into which I did my best to pack in everything I know about combs and hackles and colours If you are keen to find out more about the course (and enrol!) you can find all that on the course page HERE

And what are we giving away this time?! With EVERY purchase of either Majacraft Handcombs, or Majacraft Hackle from our Fiberygoodness Webstore, you will also get free Enrolment to the “Dynamic Blending: Combs and Hackle” course! You can make your tool choice in our Fiberygoodness Majacraft store right HERE . We totally recommend these tools for their quality, beauty, and ease of use. I have had my Majacraft handcombs and hackle for years now (my combs go with me whenever I travel!) and I love them, they fit my hands, they are light, and they work brilliantly.   

I hope you will enjoy the courses!

Suzy

This week I thought I would post about two things I think we all need as fiber artists; ‘creativity‘ and ‘skill‘. By skill I mean the ability to execute different techniques for spinning different yarns.

When we start spinning the focus is very much on developing our skills, and this is exactly the focus required! We learn the techniques for spinning singles of varying thicknesses, and develop skills for judging the amount of twist in our yarns and the different techniques for plying them. It takes a lot of skill to be able to deliberately spin a specific kind of yarn.

This process continues! Even years later I am still looking for new techniques I can use to spin yarns, to create texture and colour effects, and to challenge myself with. This also extends to fiber preparation and colour management done pre-spinning too. There are many areas where we can increase our skill and add to our stable of techniques as spinners. I love to find new materials to use and to try out for lots of different techniques, just to see what will happen.

And then there are challenges we are given, such as the ‘Leather and Lace’ challenge Arlene sent out a few years ago, I still remember receiving the package of ‘mystery fiber’ she sent me for the project.. omg at first I had no idea how to use it! Stringy plant fibers, some leather pieces, some lacy cloth, and the brief to make something to the ‘Leather and Lace’ theme… This is the kind of challenge that really keeps you on your creative toes, that extends your skills AND your creativity! Often it needs to come from ‘outside’ of you in this way, to really get you thinking outside of the box, it is much more effective than coming up with your own challenges! In the end I created something I am still proud of, and which combined both my spinning skills and my love of drawing I would NEVER have made this yarn without Arlenes prompts!

This yarn tells a story for me, about life, toughness, tattoos, and the contrast of the soft lace and loops in the yarn (complexity of life!), I called it ‘Written on my Skin”

This is why we offer two different types of courses on Fiberygoodness. If you have been looking at our offerings and wondering which to choose, then this post might be helpful. We have designed our courses to aim for different aspects of spinning. Our short courses, like the latest ‘Dynamic Colour Blending‘ class, are aimed at adding techniques and skills to your ‘stable’. The Colour Blending course covers the technical uses of Combs and Hackles for blending new colours, and Colour Management is a big part of that, creating the colour preparations to spin the yarns you want.

We have the Beautiful Bulkies class running for those who wish to expand (literally!) the yarns they can spin to include ultra chunky. This course has some very practical skill building exercises for participants to get hands on with the fiber and start spinning nice big fluffy chunky yarns. This includes how to choose the right fibers and preparations to spin big yarns as well as wheel set up, twist, and treadling speeds. This is all skill building stuff!

We have gone beyond the actual spinning too, because it doesnt just stop there! We have added Evanita’s fantastic course on Photographing yarns with ‘Outstanding Images for the Fiber Artist‘ – to really do them justice, and we also have Arlenes awesome Sock School! Both these short courses are excellent additions to skill building beyond the wheel.

Then we have our courses that we developed specifically as creativity builders, because, what do you do once you have learned so many awesome techniques for making different yarns?! It is very easy to get stuck in a rut and one day noticing that you are spinning the same yarns in the same colourways all the time. This is when your creativity comes into it, developing your own special ways to combine those skills and techniques into something uniquely yours. Our Flagship course the Journey to the Golden Fleece is very much focussed on creativity boosting, getting people out of their usual comfort zones and designing yarns based on their own self discoveries. The themes are aimed at exploration of ideas and emotions, and ways to bring these into your spinning. This course is currently closed but will re-open soon.

The other creativity based course we have IS open at the moment, and it also contains strong elements of skill and technique learning as well. S3 (Sketch Spin Scribe) is an entirely self paced course, and comes  with my special method for turning abstract concepts and ideas into concrete yarn design plans and finished items. It has seven modules, each starting with a short story written specifically for the course and containing a common thread that connects our yarn construction and techniques with an historic time period and art style or movement. These stories contain the inspiration for spinning and follow a path of connections through the ages. The course also contains some skill building too, having a suggested yarn with each module, and the step by step instructions for spinning that yarn. You are free to be as creative as you like in this process, or use the inspiration to make something completely different!

As a spinner I know there are times when I really want to be focussing on technical skill building, learning ways to understand the spinning process, materials, and constructions better. Other times I really feel the need to be expressive in my spinning, to go beyond making a purely functional yarn or following a recipe to create something that has been done before, and thats when I need the creativity boosts to take me out of my fibery comfort zone I hope there are courses in our growing stable of offerings that will suit where you are up to in your spinning too!

This has been a fun week in Fiberygoodness land! We have launched a brand new Course Tutored by Evanita; and it has really inspired me! This is Evanita’s “Spinning with Turkish Spindles: Singles to Plying” online course. It is wonderful, and has got me spinning away and making my first actual ‘yarn turtle’ on my Majacraft spindle. I mean, you cant fail to be inspired by Evanitas spinning..

The course is awesome, Evanita has created videos for demonstration of techniques, they are very clear and easy to see what she is doing as she guides you step by step through getting started, spinning, and then plying – we have everything covered! And drawing from her wealth of knowledge and Turkish Spindle experience, Evanita has some excellent tips and tricks to share.

We also created class notes with even more detail than in the videos, so there is plenty to learn from. The course is open for enrolments at any time and you can work your way through it at your own pace. For support, we are always available on our Fiberygoodness Facebook group to chat about the course and help with anything you need too.

Find out more about the course (and enrol if youre also inspired!)  by clicking the banner

And we couldnt leave it just at that, with all the spindle inspiration! We are also running a new Fiberygoodness Evolution project – with Spindles! You are free to use any spindle you like, and the goal is to create mini skeins of graduated yarns, from which to make decorative ‘snowflakes’! It just seemed the right time of year for doing that And the mini skeins on such a portable tool as the spindle, seemed do-able for those of us with really busy time demands coming up to the end of the year. Finding moments to spin a little and knit a little seems like it could be a fun use of the odd bit of creative time we might be getting! I am hoping to fill our Fiberygoodness group page with beautiful snowflakes with this project, I hope you will join us! Here is the project outline: (and if you want to grab your Special Edition Evolution Spindle you can also find those in our webstore for a limited time!)

The time has come for epic fibery adventures…
Enrolments are now open!

This is a very special announcement from Fiberygoodness, as it heralds a new Sailing for our flagship course – the Journey to the Golden Fleece! This course is completely online, self paced (although we have a schedule) and a wonderful chance to expand your creative fibery horizons along with your fellow crewmates!

(Illustration from the Coursebook)

What is special about the Journey to the Golden Fleece? This is a spinning course like no other! Based upon the Heroes Journey, we travel through our own creative thoughts, motivations, and inspirations, each one of us on a unique path towards self expression and spinning mastery. During this ten month course you will explore aspects of spinning you have never considered before, find what drives you and what makes your yarn speak with your own unique voice.

You can choose to focus on creating works of fibery art with expansive, expressive yarns full of textures and riots of colour, or you may  choose to focus your energy on Naturals and explore different breeds. You may take this as an opportunity to develop your mastery of traditional yarns while giving them your own personal ‘twist’ to tell your stories. Join your fellow travellers on our own private Facebook group to share your journey with. Suzy will be there to offer guidance and feedback as needed, and to run monthly challenges and themed activities which will include popup live stream tutorials and anything else you need to help you on your journey.

The downloadable Coursebook is packed with exercises to get you thinking about your spinning in entirely new ways and from new angles, not just as ‘fiber and twist’ but as ‘self expression and experimentation’. You will also receive weekly emails to help you as you work through your themed modules, and a video with each module in which Suzy and Arlene explore the theme and ideas for you to think about.

This IS no ordinary spinning course… do not expect step by step instruction that will have you spinning the SAME yarn as the instructor (and everyone else!). This is a course that will lead you towards becoming an independent designer of yarns, a fiber artist confident in your own unique strengths, and at home with your own creativity, you always had it, we are just giving it a boost! Hone your skills, master your fibers and techniques in any way you like, we will be here to support you and guide you when you need it!

At the end of the course you will receive a very pretty Certificate of Achievement plus a gorgeous Journey Badge, made exclusively for us by Majacraft!

ENROLMENTS ARE NOW OPEN for a short period, Please visit the link below to see examples of work by previous students, read their testimonials, and to enrol for this sailing!

READ MORE AND ENROL!

I love it that we are such a global community here on Fiberygoodness, we have wonderful connections throughout Europe, the US, and here in the Southern Hemisphere too. It leads to an amazing diversity of experiences, fibers, and projects!

At the moment here in New Zealand we are well into Autumn, the trees have very much turned and there is a chill in the air that makes me want to snuggle up in front of a blazing fire, watch old musicals, and knit!

Here is a photo I took last week, the reflections in the water and the colour of that tree looked amazing to me, very inspiring!

While I am cooling down here it is warming up in the north! And so are the yarns coming in from our current crew of Golden Fleece course journeyers, I have loved seeing the sharing and activity on their private FB group, and watching some of the module one and two yarns evolving. Check out some of the beauty that has been created so far!

I have loved the stories behind these yarns, each person has created something that has a strong sense of personal meaningfulness, and in doing so have made yarns that are really unique, rather than following a ‘spin what I spin’ step by step process these artists in our crew are starting from their own inspirational point and building their yarns from scratch, and the results are truly stunning. I also had the great pleasure of meeting Helen Keenan at our New Zealand fiber Festival recently and she had brought along her yarn for me too see in person, it was a real treat for me! I was blown away by the softness and gorgeous feel of her yarn (pictured above) as well as the lovely drape it had, and it was a journey of discovery also to see it close up and realise just how many beads are in there! I wish I could see all the course participants yarns in person (Thanks Helen that was awesome!)

And now I have enjoyed oogling the Golden Fleece yarns I am feeling inspired to go and spin, and in fact I need to now because i bought myself a treat, I justified this to myself by reflecting on the epic number of workshops and travelling I have done in the last month, and the coming winter. Well lets be honest, I would have gotten myself this treat without the justification! I am now eagerly waiting at my postbox for my new set of Lykke Driftwood short interchangable needles. I recently discovered I really like the way the short needles fit my hands for knitting, these are 3.5inches, and I fell in love with these Danish needles.. I mean, driftwood?! Couldnt be more me! I added a pair of extra chunky needles to the order (Size 17 12mm) as I am also planning some bulky knit fingerless mitts in my near future..  I just love the variation of colours in the wood and the organic look of them and I can’t wait to get knitting! If you want to treat yourself too follow the link to Amazon  

If you are a Fiberygoodness Facebook group member please keep an eye out over the next few weeks for the occasional pop up tutorial I will be running as livestream events, and I hope to have a special guest soon who will be joining us to run an amazing fibery project in the group!

Right on the heels of our newest online course “Dymanic Colour Blending: Carding” which covers a range of ways to card fiber into batts and rolags, here is a post that’s going to help you spin up your lovely lofty fibres and continue the colour management learned through the course. If you haven’t done the course yet you can still use these ideas!

During the five videos I created for the course, and also given as exercises in the workbook that goes along with it, students were asked to create a series of batts that use colour in quite different ways.

This batt making is really fun! During the course materials I went further than just adding random colour into batts but really working on creating batts with specific colour management techniques that would work up into a yarn that looks cohesive and intentional. Because of course, fiber prep is everything!

So following the release of the course I thought it would be fun to look at ways to spin these batts (we haven’t even started on the rolags yet!). I ran a livestream video where i demonstrated some different ways to spin from a batt, how to split it up differently to manage the colour placements into my yarns to create different effects from the same batt. It was a fun session and I spun my batt into a fairly big single and then plyed it into this!

If you want to view the video its on my YouTube Channel HERE

So in this blogpost lets have a closer look at spinning from a batt and the different ways you can split them up!

Firstly, I suggest laying out your batt on a flat surface and figuring out how the colours are placed and how you could make the best use of them, start with a plan!

A gradient batt gives you many options. Usually they are organised with a single colour change that starts with one colour on one side of the batt merging into another colour on the other side of the batt (and could have several other colours in between) This gives you several options straight away, you could go for a yarn with that same sequence of colour change, so stripping your batt in a zigzag pattern and creating a long ‘roving’ from it will help you keep those colours in order and one after the other. (see illustration at the end of this post!)

You could also split your batt into several pieces width-wise, this would give you that same gradient when spun from side to side, but in shorter colour changelengths and multiple repeats.

This works also for striped batts

If you wanted to get more daring, you could even try splitting it into strips on an angle (see illustration below), which would mix up the colours more, giving you some sections with only two of the colours one after the other, and some sections with all of the colours. This makes an interesting yarn with a lot more irregular sized lengths of solid colours.

If you have a batt that layered rather than striped then you have some different options. You could strip it off into lengths and then spin it into a barber poled yarn, this can provide a really pretty heathery look when its knitted up. If you spin this thick you get more defined stripes than if you spin it thin, which will look more heathery and blended.

You could also take a layered batt apart and spin one colour after the other, allowing flecks of the colours from above and below it in the batt to fleck into your yarn now and then for a pretty variation. When you split this kind of layered batt up back into individual colours you will invariably get those flecks so why not make them a feature!

You could also just pull off small chunks from a layered batt and spin it from the fold, so you can manage the colour more deliberately as you draft it off your finger.

If you have a batt that is quite random in its colour placements, then you can simply choose to spin it from a corner, leave the batt whole and place it in your lap and let your drafting fingers move around the batt as they will, this is a fun way to spin!

You could also pull chunks off this kind of batt too and even pull out specific colours to make regular sections in your yarn, so if there is a lot of gold in a batt you could take that out and make a gold base interspersed with patches of random colours, this gives you a lot of choices for plying effects too, making a feature of the random (or solid) patches in coils or beehives, for example.

I think the most important thing however when spinning from a batt, it not to be intimidated by it. It CAN feel like a lot of fiber, but don’t worry, remember that YOU are the boss! Break it up into more manageable pieces and spin away

Please feel free to print out the illustration that I did to show some ways to split up batts, I didnt originally make it with the idea of print so its an odd shape, but if you click the image you will get the larger version of it to download.

Fun With Spikes!

Here we go! We are all, in one way or another, finding our way through the global pandemic known as Covid-19. It has been an emotional roller coaster for many of us, and I feel this is a great time to bring you something to distract you from the stresses of lockdown and social distancing.

This is something I began mid 2019 after being asked to teach at Majacraft Camp 2020. The theme was ‘Naturals’. Over the years I have taught plenty of fiber prep classes, in which the humble hackle was often the last part or the ‘extra if we have time’ tool, and yet, I felt there was so much more to explore there. And boy, was I right!

Given the opportunity to dedicate an entire 3 hour workshop, I began experimenting with colours on the hackle, and wanting to make something repeatable for larger projects, and beyond my usual ‘stripes and blocks’, I was hit by a lightening bolt of an idea – HACKLE PATTERNS!

Yes – drawing a template of the hackle and designing my colour placement! Much experimentation ensued, I made and spun samples, knitted them up into swatches to see how they would transfer from design to fabric, and discovered that YES! These patterns can be ‘READ’ easily and directly translate into the knitted swatch! And not only that, there is apparently no end to the designs that can be created this way!

This is a simple system in which the pattern is drawn into the template as a guide for how to load the hackle – a bit like lines that then get coloured in with fiber. I then gave each colour a number and decided on a placement in the design (yes colour with numbers!).

The pattern is easily read from end to end of the hackle, the width of the hackle becomes the length of the combed top dizzed off it.

The yarn spun from it can be done as a two ply, by creating two matching hackle loads and spinning them together, or as a three ply chain, spun from end to end of the top. I sampled both two and three ply yarns from each of my patterns, and you will see the result in the Workbook!

What I have on offer here is my entire 3 hour workshop, condensed into a half hour video, which includes:

• an overview of the system,

• a hackle loading demonstration showing how to use the pattern, a diz demonstration,

• a mini tutorial on how to create your own patterns,

• and a short spin demo with a couple of useful tips for spinning this kind of fiber colour prep.

Please go ahead and DOWNLOAD THE PDF of your free 50 page Workbook, which contains the overview of the system, the ‘rules’ and principles it contains, and all the patterns, samples, Notes and variations I have made so far.

Click the cover below for the .PDF (for all devices) or follow THIS LINK for the .EPUB for Apple Books app.

Please also settle in and watch the Video in which I explain the content of the Workbook and demonstrate all the techniques you need to successfully create you own, unique and repeatable colour designs to get exactly the yarn you want!

You can watch the video right here, or travel on to YOUTUBE and watch from there, I would like to strongly encourage you to SHARE this blogpost, the Workbook, and the video from Youtube with your groups and spin families! This is one of those ideas that I strongly feel should be shared and available to everyone, not kept behind a paywall for just a few, I would LOVE to revolutionise the use of hackles, a much undervalued tool, and to bring people new ideas for taking control of their colours and yarns in this way!

I would also love it if you enjoy this so much that you do wish to share it, if you would give me a wee credit and/or a link back to tinyStudio (www.fiberygoodness.com) so I can continue to share the love for all things fiber by reaching new audiences through tinyStudio Creative Life magazine!

If you enjoyed this workshop, you may also like some of the other workshops we have available to purchase on www.fiberygoodness.com/courses – we also have Carding and combing courses, and more hackles too! Or if you would love more free content you might consider buying Suzy a coffee for sustenance on our Ko-fi page! https://ko-fi.com/fiberygoodness