Majacraft Camp 2014

I recently had a great dose of fibre fun at Majacraft's camp at Rotorua. For a video of camp highlights visit http://www.majacraft.co.nz/blog/?=850/blog/?=850.

Speed Dating with Fibre Tools was my first workshop taken by Esther Rodgers aka Jazzturtle. Jazzturtle Creations I learnt from Esther Rodgers how to use a blending board and after making my first few rolags I was hooked. Luckily I had also chosen a workshop in which participants made a blending board. Even better Owen chose to demonstrate how to attach the carding cloth  using my board so I had mine made for me. On the last morning I sat in the sun happily making little rolags and more little rolags.

 Aren't they beautiful!

 Fibres on the blending board.

I spun mostly a woollen yarn using a long draw on my Majacraft Aura. I wasn't sure that this would work on the Aura because of its pigtail orifice but it did. Well I thought it had worked until I tried plying. I got myself into plying strife because I had accidently spun one bobbin on a different whorl setup to the other. The yarn broke in places because it poorly spun. All the different fibres, merino, corriedale,silk sliver, silk noil and mohair curls that looked so exciting in the rolags were beastly to spin longdraw.

 The mess on the bobbin as I searched for a broken end.

The skein of yarn  - Next time I will take the fibre off the blending board using a diz working back and forth across the board. That way more of the fibres will be in line. The difficulty with the rolags is that they had some inherent twist. Woollen spinning works best with evenly carded rolags. I had hoped I'd get away it - I didn't.

Jewel Yarn

I succumbed to this 19 micron merino yarn called Precious Jewels from Lyn Walsh of  Fibres 2 Go last July then I bought another 100g at our Thames Creative Fibres Open Day last October.

 I wanted to make a 2 ply yarn with many short colour changes with as few areas as possible where the colour of the 2 plys was the same.

The amazing colour changes after I had carefully opened out the sliver.

I made a sample and found if I spun the yarn then plyed from opposite ends (Does that make sense?) I'd get the yarn I wanted.

The two 100g wheels of fibre varied slightly in colour so I needed to put each on its own bobbin then ply the two. Starting with one wheel I gently opened out the sliver. I divided the length of sliver in half then split each half into 7 strips rolling each one into a ball. I dizzed all the strips and rerolled. Now I had 14 balls in one container. Next I repeated this process for the second wheel but split from the other end.I spun a worsted yarn from the first set onto the bobbin. The second set went onto the next bobbin. When I plyed the bobbins there was my jewel yarn with flashes of colour.