Spin or Dye!

Spin or dye was Martha's final lesson for us after a week filled with fiber fun and more information than one can possibly imagine! I've never had a better week at the John C. Campbell Folk School. From room mates and class mates, to class content, to food, and most importantly, to Martha Owen, our instructor and fiber enabler!





















We began with a mountain of raw wool, sheared from Martha's own sheep, which we washed and dried.





















We dyed wool using natural dye stuffs like marigolds, madder root, black walnuts, cochineal, and indigo.
















We visited the sheep and Angora rabbits at Martha's farm.

We learned to prepare fiber for spinning.

We had an amazing variety of spinning wheels available to us, and concurrent with our fiber play, we all began our efforts at spinning yarn. Here is Kate, spinning Angora from the rabbit in her lap.















We had a good time and learned much. Some of us are hooked and went home with something like this: