I’m so excited to announce my upcoming gig – I’m teaching at All Things Fiber Camp in May. Its been in the works for a while, so I may even have mentioned it here. Yesterday, on my day off to catch up on many things Painted Sheep, I sent in my contract and finalized my class descriptions and things. It’s all coming together and looks to be an amazing week. Camp is at Ramapo Retreat in Rhinebeck, NY for 5 days in May. I’ll be teaching dye workshops every morning and then either Spinning with Handpainted Yarns or Knitting with Handpainted Yarns in the late afternoon (rotating schedule). Class descriptions should be going up on the site soon, but here’s a sneak peek:
Dyeing Yarn and Fiber: Participants will learn to handpaint fiber and yarn, using acid dyes. Techniques for various color effects will be covered, including variegated, tonal and shaded colorways. The effects of varying the base fibers with the technique will be covered. Participants will have an opportunity to play with color and fiber and will be encouraged to jump out of their “color box” to create one of a kind colorways. All necessarily dyeing supplies will be provided, including acid dyes, a skein of lace weight or sock yarn, 4 ounces of BFL roving and 4 ounces of wool blend (typically merino or BFL with silk, alpaca or other fiber) roving, as well as use of dye equipment. Participants will need to bring a large bowl or small bucket (to be used for dyeing only), towel and roll of Saran Wrap. Dyeing is messy (part of the fun!), so wearing an apron or old shirt is helpful. No dyeing experience is necessary for this class. Those wishing to take this class more than once over the course of the week will have an opportunity to learn additional techniques and play with different fiber blends.
Spinning Handpainted Fibers: Have a lovely multi-colored bit of fiber but don’t know what do with it? Or just how to keep those pretty colors intact in the handspun yarn? Or how to create a great effect with it and mix up the colors a bit? In this class, we’ll talk about how to spin up a handpainted roving to get different effects like long color repeats, graduated colors, barber-poling (on purpose!) and blended effects. This is for advanced beginner spinners and up – participants must be comfortable spinning and plying a stable yarn on wheel or spindle. Participants should bring a wheel or spindle.
Knitting with Handpainted Yarns: Have you ever bought a beautiful hand dyed yarn, brought it home and not known what on earth do with it? Or worse, knitted it up and found that you hated the result? This class will teach you how to pair up that handpainted yarn with the right pattern for a perfect marriage of hand-dyer and pattern designer, with a little help from you, the knitter! This will be a discussion based class, with samples (the good, the bad and the ugly!), tips and techniques to create a beautiful work of art from handpainted yarn, be it your own or someone else’s. Participants should have basic knitting knowledge and are welcome to bring handpainted yarns as well as samples of their own work for tips and suggestions.
I love to teach and thrilled to have the opportunity to do so at Camp. It really is camp for grown ups – and I get to spend my week sharing my love of color and fiber with others and taking classes and hanging out with great people. Lucky, lucky me!
I actually have other teaching gigs in the works (fingers crossed) that will be local to me and more regular. It’ll be a little different from what I’m doing at Camp but still a great opportunity to share my love of fiber with others. As soon as its in place, I’ll announce it here. In the meantime, I’m adding a Workshops/Teaching page to my site in the next couple of days – check that out for more information on what I offer for classes and workshops.
After that, we went on to dyeing up some alpaca/merino/silk and angora/merino rovings (that was a new to me fiber that I absolutely plan on stocking in the future – it took dye beautifully). I challenged the group to come up with 2 colorways – one that was their “signature”, that would some one could look at and say was really “them” and another that was completely outside of their color box. At the end of the day, some of our dyers washed out their rovings and hung them to dry, while others took them home to do the same. It seemed everyone left exhausted and happy – I know I certainly did!
Aren’t their rovings gorgeous? There’s even more pictures on my Flickr page (link down and to the left). Before we wrapped up our wonderful weekend, we took a (most of the) group shot and I was presented with this: 
A beautiful towel, embroidered with The Painted Sheep on one end, my name on the other. They made me cry! What a thoughtful and generous gift. It now has a place of honor in my bathroom, on the towel rack. Its the prettiest part of the room and it makes me smile every time I go in there. Many, many thanks to a great group for a wonderful weekend! You guys rock!
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