With my friend Heikemade, we organised the 2nd edition of “File tes mitaines” (= spin your fingerless mitts), a week-end retreat for fiber lovers.
On the morning of the first day, Heike and I taught beginner spinning classes, for those who couldn’t spin yet: Spindle spinning, or spinning on a spinning wheel.
Then in the afternoon, everybody gathered and after a quick shared meal we started spinning our yarn for the next day: The challenge was to spin enough yarn on the saturday to knit/crochet our fingerless gloves on the sunday !
Beginners and experienced spinners alike, everybody started to spin on their wheels or spindles… Alpaca, angora, wool or blended fibers, everybody spun their own prefered fibers.
It’s always a treat to see so many different wheels during those week-end retreats ! Perfect occasion to maybe try a friend’s wheel, discuss the pros and cons of each one…
Or to buy a new wheel ! 😀
We’re lucky that Heikemade is a distributor for the new Lojan wheels (on top of the Kromski wheels she’s been selling for years) and helped me assemble this one so I could spin on it right away !
This one is the Lojan “Buddy”, with one large paddle pedal (I’m loving the design with the elegant hole in the middle), and I’ll soon do a review and comparison with my other main wheel, Woolmaker’s “Bliss”.
So far I find it pretty cool already 😉
At the end of the afternoon, everyone had their handspun yarn ready for the next day ! All different colors, textures and fibers.. Yum !
Sunday, 9 AM: everybody was ready to cast on for their projects with the handspun from the previous day.
Some followed a pattern, while others improvised…
Some made steady progress while others had to frog and start again 😉
Of course we took a few breaks every now and then, including to snap a few epic photos of my crochet buddies:
– Myriam and her Amanite hood (without dots) alongside my Inner Forest hood.
– Patricia and I wearing our matching Mélopée sweaters… She made hers with handspun yarn too, how gorgeous !
But by mid afternoon, we all had at least one fingerless glove or mitten to show ! Well done !
And it was already time to say goodbye, and see you maybe next year !
What a great week-end 🙂