Another round of workshops

Began yesterday, on our home turf. I have to be honest, I wasn't sure if this was a wise thing or not. But I felt that we needed a preliminary outing for "Spin to Knit", however truncated, and the guild needed some in-house workshops, so it seemed like a reasonable idea to go for it.

In the event, both the DSM and I were in the final stages of the latest cold from hell, which might have made matters worse, but actually induced a kind of "oh, what the hell" feeling, and maybe that helped. I felt that it went well.

Quite a challenge to get the content right, and I'm not entirely sure that we did, but not bad for a first effort. "StoK" is going to be a drawing together of several different day workshops that the DSM and/or I have taught over the years, brought into a coherent order and expanded. (That is the theory!) So here we were with that under construction, now distilling it back down to a short day. But in fact, it was a useful exercise for us, and I think the participants found it useful as well.

We cut it down to basics, left out actual practise of knitting techniques, colourwork, cables, etc, concentrated on spinning and stuffed the knitting in by talking about various things whilst people were spinning.

I now feel very enthused about the week-long course, and only wish that I could take it myself - which is of course, what I aim for, constructing something that I would want to do.

A few happy snaps:









Everybody seemed to get the idea of long draw!

Next weekend, we are at it again, with another workshop for Ravelry people, which will be fun. The DSM is doing spindle spinning, I'm taking a group on wheels. We had a wonderful time when we went to these folk before, so I am really looking forward to it.

And the following weekend yet more - a natural dye workshop this time. I relented. I didn't want to do any more, but I was asked very nicely, and couldn't resist. It will be ok, we are keeping it simple, and they are going to do most of the fetching and carrying for me. I need to have something of a practise before going, as I am going to use the pre-reduced indigo (as opposed to the instant, which I love but can't get in the UK to the best of my knowledge). So, I'm hoping for a fine day between now and then! And hopefully some pretty results to blog.