5-Day Beginner's Wool Spinning Workshop

Join master wool spinners and shepherds Elizabeth and Martha to discover the historical craft of hand carding and spinning on a spindle or a spinning wheel.  Learn to assess raw fleece qualities as well as how to sort, card and spin wool directly from several local sheep breeds. "Get the feel" of simple creation - make yarn! If you weave, knit, or crochet, you can further personalize your textiles by learning these ancient skills, a workshop is perfect for a beginning to new spinner. 

All materials provided. Please indicate if you can bring your own cards, hand spindle and/or spinning wheel.

Elizabeth Johnston is a spinner, weaver and knitter from Scotland’s Shetland Islands. She learned to knit before she learned to read and write, from her mother, her aunt and grandmother, who were all production knitters selling their work to local shops. But she learned to purl from her father! She learned spinning slowly, initially observing it as a child, and finally learning her spinning skills from the older women in the community. Using these age-old spinning and knitting skills, handed down through generations, she turns Shetland fleece into beautiful soft yarns, and knitted Fair Isle and lace items. Elizabeth makes her living by demonstrating, teaching, spinning, knitting and selling her work through her business: “Shetland Handspun” (www.shetlandhandspun.com). She is a tutor and program co-coordinator for “Hoswick Wool Week”, part of the internationally popular event – “Shetland Wool Week”, a 9-day event throughout Shetland annually in late September. Interest in the long history of Shetland textiles led to research into historic fabrics and the warp-weighted loom, learning how to weave on this ancient loom in the process. She is the author of two chapters in Shetland Textiles 800 BC to the Present, and coauthored The Warp Weighted Loom with friends from Iceland and Norway.

Martha Owen is a resident artist at the John C Campbell Folkschool (folkschool.org) in Brasstown, North Carolina, in spinning, knitting, felt making,and dyeing. Her adventure in spinning and natural dyeing began at this very school in 1978. She has been teaching spinning, natural dyeing and knitting design since 1984. (She taught her first class of thirteen with a one month old nursling in a wind up swing as her assistant.  That baby is now 41! ) Since 1980 her extended family has included sheep (currently Shetland, Blue Face Leicester Crosses) and angora rabbits (French). Also a banjo player and known to tell a story or two Martha's interest in sheep and wool, music and dance has carried her literally and joyfully around the world. Her children say she is a wool nerd but her sheep say she is out-standing in her field!