Comments on Olds Level 3 course

May 28 to June 1, 2012, I had the pleasure of being part of the Olds Master Spinner program this time in Level 3. We were taught by Michelle Boyd, a very knowledgeable Master  Spinner graduate of the Olds program.

With her very enthusiastic spirit she passed along much information we could all use in our daily spinning. This time around we dealt with much of the technical information as twist & count systems to determine grist. New fibres to us were cotton & silk. The class boiled & stretched coccoons into silk mawhattas & made a silk hankie. We also produced 25 different colours from one dyebath. Amazing stuff!! Many demos.

For myself, this is valuable info to have, understand & be able to use.

demo

Cheese Bread Results

Here it is:
Baked. Heel of the loaf sliced & consumed. How would I rate this? 3/5 for taste & appearance. Not spectacular, but quite good. Not very cheesy & no it did not stick to the pans.

Would I make it again? Maybe with chunks of sharp old cheddar.

So Many Things

There are so many things to be done when I have time off. Right now it's only the weekend - I know that sounds like a lot of time, but it's not really. I can't fit everything in that I must do.

I did take time out to make some bread first thing this morning. I retrieved James Beard on Bread book and it automatically opened at the cheese bread page. I've never made it before, but it sounded good & interesting and the pages rested open there when I pulled out the book.

Cheese Bread

It's had its first rising and now I'm about to place them in their pans for the second & final rise. Later today I will post the final result. There is a lot of parmesan cheese in them so if they don't stick to the pans, I will be very surprised. Til later.

Ready to Knit the Mitts

I have now more than enough to knit the mitts. I spun something a little different for the cuff: I used the same walnut dyed Clun Forest, but mixed it with some white merino to soften it up a little for the cuff area.
Here are the skeins. In total I have 165 grams.

Walnut dyed Clun Forest skeins. The lighter one hss some merino added for softness.

Update on Clun Forest Mittens

In the little time off work, I managed to spin a little for the mittens - enough to get started knitting until I spin more in between spinning for my class work.
Pictures show the progress:

Plying in progress.

Making a skein on the niddy.

 

 

Washed, set, and dried.

When the skein came off the niddy, it looked overtwisted. Before I plied it, I let it ply back on itself to see how it should be plied. Information told me to ply at 4 tpi (twists per inch), so that is just what I did. On the niddy it was definitely overtwisted, but after washing it I had a balanced skein.