Back from Alberta

Fibre Week at Olds College in Alberta was fab, fab, fab! I arrived on Saturday, took an all day class on fiber and color blending on Sunday, and then dove into the five-day Level 1 course for the Master Spinning Program. We teased wool, spun wool, carded wool, spun wool, dyed wool, spun wool and so on. We actually started out spinning on some primitive spinning tools then graduated to the wheel….twisty stick, rakestraw spinner, drop spindle, and spinning wheel. Day five we worked with silk. A fiber fanatics dream!

And I met some wonderful people. Canadians are so nice (and the few USAers that I met too)! During Fibre Week there was an Evening Social with knitwear designer Lucy Neatby as the guest speaker, a Silk Spin In (I spun a silk/yak blend…just dreamy), a fashion show, silent auction, and judging for the wool, alpaca, and mohair shows. Hooray to the Bluefaced Leicester lamb fleeces that won reserve champion (a breed near and dear to my heart :-). The fiber was flowing! Oh, and the vendors had a wonderful variety of fiber and loads of other stuff. My suitcases were jam packed coming back. Thank goodness fiber isn’t heavy. But my two new Forrester drop spindles--the Dervish and Linum—stayed close to me on the plane.

I can’t wait to go back next year.

Some pics from Fibre Week:

Yarn samples from the Fiber and Colour Blending class -Hard at work in Level 1 class of Master Spinner Program-Me drop spindling over the cloud of fiber-
Checking the color in my dye pot (dyed my handspun BFL wool with cochineal)-Two fellow students (Katelyn and Kaitlin) posing in front of their natural dyed yarn-

"Garbage" shawl made from leftover hand spun yarn by Ellen (our Level 1 instructor)-

Ellen modeling her shawl (it's not garbage, it's gorgeous). Ellen modeled it in the fashion show-
Lace shawls hand spun and knitted by Chuck (the other Level 1 instructor)-Chuck and his gorgeous shawls-

Me blending white BFL wool and blue BFL wool on the hackles-

Done with the blending. It's like blue skies and white clouds mixed together-

Packing to come home. Trying to stuff all the fiber into my suitcase-
Cloud of fiber was kept in the center of the room all week...very colorful and inspiring-

NOW....it's time to get busy on all the requirements for the Breeds Book, Dye Book, and Spinning Book.