Have Ewe Any Wool?: Spinning at the Mannings

It’s hard to believe that a full year has passed and it’s time once again for the annual “Spinning Seminar” at the Mannings in East Berlin, PA! What a fabulous day it was – the weather was absolutely perfect. It was warm (not hot!) AND there was relatively low humidity. There was also a gentle breeze blowing across the yard. (When I arrived back home in VA, I definitely figured out where the humidity had gone – it was AWFUL!!!! I just about turned around and headed back north!)

There were sheep shearing demos – check out the before and afters of some of Roclans’ sheep! They look so naked after they’ve been sheered!

I saw some awesome spinning wheels – like this Journey Wheel (left). What a sweet and compact wheel! And check out the spinning wheel on the right – it has TWO wheels!!

I started spinning what I’m calling my “ice cream roving”. It’s pink, brown, and white….just like Neopolitan Ice Cream! Mmmmmm!

This woman made spinning cotton on a Lendrum look so easy, that I purchased a pound of cotton with the intention of spinning and then weaving it into a blouse…like the one she’s wearing.

I learned that the natural colored cotton she’s spinning and wearing gradually fades throughout the day…but once it’s washed, the color becomes more prominent again.

In addition to the wide variety of spinning wheels, one of the demos showed off a very primitive type of loom using various interesting items as the weights for the warp. It was fascinating!!!

The fabric woven isn’t very dense – it produces a very light open weave.

These weights look like doughnuts! How wild is that!?!?

The weight on the right are actually some little bags full of aquarium gravel. What a creative way to recycle!!!

There was also a Nuno felting demo. I just love this process! Using silk, you artfully lay some fibers on top and using just some water, soap, and friction, you force the fibers through the silk to produce a very warm, colorful, and lightweight scarf.

There was a felting demo as well. My favorite part of that was the line of felted skulls….LOVE IT!!!

There was even a group there demonstrating the art of “Sprang”. I became fascinated by this craft a few years ago…it seems to have had a recent resurgence in popularity. There’s even a Yahoo Sprang group!

As always, there’s an enormous variety of looms and wheels for sale within the shop at the Mannings.

As always, I took to way too many photos! So, I’ve added this photo album that’s featuring a few of them that I didn’t have room to include in the main post!