Another class! It was at Lovelyarns where I took my weaving class last year and my husband took a mosaic knitting class this month. I was really excited about this one because I want to do Tour de Fleece this year and really focus on my spinning.

The description was a little vague

“Have learned to spin your own yarn on a spindle but want to go a step further? Or do you know how to spin on a wheel but want to learn some more fun spinning techniques? Then this is the class for YOU! Sarah will show you how to spin stripes, coils, how to core spin AND how to make your own art batts on a drum carder! Space in this class is limited to THREE STUDENTS. All materials are included in the class fee. Wheels available for use are an Ashford Kiwi, Ashford Traveler, and a Spinolution King Bee. We also have an assortment of drum carders.”

but it was such a small class that I figured the idea was to be flexible to what we want.

The two store wheels were a little finicky and not ready for a class; a lot of time was spent getting them working. The third one was the instructor’s own wheel. One of the drum carders was broken and completely unable to be used and the other didn’t have a clamp. The third was half the size of the other working one. This meant we couldn’t all make batts at the same time which also really slowed things down. It took us a long time to get on the wheel.

The class was in a windowless, un-air conditioned room which was “cooled” by fans. I’m not sure if having a class there in the summer was the best idea.

One woman didn’t have any wheel experience (she had taken the drop spindle class) and really had a hard time with her wheel. Even the instructor had difficulties getting it going. I felt like she could have gotten some more instruction from the instructor. The jump from spindle to wheel is pretty big!

I think the class should have been for people with basic wheel skills if there wasn’t going to be instruction for the drop spindle people. She ended up muddling through spinning some single ply yarn that the instructor asked to keep for another class (?) and didn’t end up with anything to bring home. I felt really badly for her. She and the instructor said she could take the class again and if she does, I hope they don’t make her pay or give her a big discount. She had even brought her own roving to spin that went into the batt the instructor wanted to keep for some reason. It was really strange.

I ended up making a small batt with the tiny carder and core spinning that and then using some pencil roving that the instructor spun while working on the wheel to try making some coils in the last couple minutes of class. When the carder was free, I did make a regular sized batt and was allowed to bring that home with me to spin on my own wheel.

We didn’t learn stripes or beehives. I did learn how to core spin and got some ideas about what to use as a core. We learned how to use the drum carder. I felt like the instruction was mostly reactionary (we’d do something and be corrected) instead of more proactive.

It seemed to have been the first time they offered the class. It’s happening again this summer. Hopefully they will do some repairs to their equipment and some maintenance and make a schedule for instruction for the next ones.

It wasn’t horrible and the instructor was pleasant and knowledgeable but it felt more like a casual meet up with fiber access than a class. It was not organized at all and with only three of us, I felt like we should have been able to accomplish what the stated goals were.

I was happy to learn some details about the drum carder (I recently got one on mega sale and have been waiting for the class to try it out) and make a tiny bit of yarn and bring home a batt but I was hoping to learn more about making art yarn during the four hours I was there.

I had put a note in my order offering to bring my wheel with me that was ignored. I think things would have gone a lot smoother if I had because then all four of us would have had our own wheel and at the very least no one would have had to take the Spinolution wheel that didn’t seem to work properly.

My husband and I have signed up for a felting class and a knitting class in July and then I think I am going to take a break from classes! I’m a little tired, they aren’t cheap and it’s so disappointing when it’s less helpful than expected.