You all know the story here – time got away from me on this one, then life interfered in a big way.  At any rate, I have much to show and tell from my weekend teaching in Rhode Island.

It was an amazing weekend, from start to finish.  After a long, crazy couple of days, I arrived at Sandi’s farm on Friday evening and got to spend time seeing her place.  I finally met her husband and got to see her beautiful property.  What a spot!  Sandi is truly lucky.  Of course there were sheep – I got a tour of the barn and got to see her flock, including the lambs.  So sweet!  You should know that I behaved and did not attempt to bring anyone home (wouldn’t fit in the van).  Being there, if even just for the 2 nights, was very peaceful.  It was so quiet.  There was a bit of baa-ing now and then – though it seemed perfect, especially as a I was prepping my workshop notes over breakfast.

The workshop itself was in Coventry, RI at the Coventry Historical Society’s building.  It was a great space, with plenty of room for the 25 spinners in attendance.  We started the weekend with the usual round of intros, then we went into talking dyeing.  I showed off samples, talked about different fibers and effects, the process, the works.  Then it was time to play!  The group started with BFL roving after I demonstrated some different handpainting techniques.  Descended like vultures on the dye table, I tell ya!  I only brought 13 colors along but the range they created was infinite.  Not afraid of a little mixing, which was great!  Here are some pictures of their first round of playing:  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!

After our first day, I was treated to a wonderful dinner with about 10 of the participants.  It was a fabulous evening out – what a fun group they are!  I have to admit that I slept extra well that night.

The next morning, there was a great energy in the room as everyone came in with their rovings from the day before.  The group was very, very excited and full of creative energy.  This is one of my favorite parts of enabling new addicts teaching new dyers – watching people go from timid about the technique or using color or combining things to excited and alive with possibility!  It was really fun to watch the change in the room happen as we went.  We spent the morning with more demos and then dyed up superwash merino lambswool and merino tencel rovings (yum!) and then it was on to yarn (very special yarn – more on that later*).  We got the last of the dyepots going before lunch so that everyone could take home cooled rovings and yarn, even if they didn’t have time to wash them out.  After lunch, we talked spinning techniques with a few demos (I really wish I’d had more time for this part – better planning on my end next time).  Then it was on to the really fun thing – time to show off their work and talk about their process.  The creativity in this group was wonderful!  They came up with some great, inspired combinations.  I think its safe to say that that no one here was afraid of color.  Here’s some of the magic they made: 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!

*about the yarn we dyed, as I truly believe in credit where credit is due – I ran into a major snag in my workshop prep on Friday.  Being truly last minute, as I always am, I started to wind off the 25 skeins of sock yarn that I promised the group on Friday afternoon, thinking I had just enough time to get it done before I left.  What I never counted on was that my wooden skein winder doesn’t work in high humidity.  The wood was swollen and it wasn’t moving.  $%^&!  One panicked phone call to Gail at Mystic River Yarns later and I had 25 skeins of white yarn waiting for me at the shop.  Not only did Mystic River Yarns rescue me, they stayed open late waiting for me to get through traffic to get there, gave me the amazing mix of Cascade 220 and Ultra Alpaca (yes, we dyed those – heaven!  my sample skein of Ultra Alpaca in Tranquility is set to become a la Novia) at a discount and threw in a mug and a couple of tote bags.  Seriously, they went way above and beyond to help me out.  That’s great service!  Many thanks MRY!