For starters, there was an antique spinning wheel demonstration using a walking wheel -- this is the type of wheel a lot of people associate with spinning and would probably be surprised to learn that it was actually used while standing:
I was surprised at how interesting the raising of silk worms and cottage silk production could be. If you look closely in this picture and the next, you can see the silk worms!!!
Of course, the day would not be complete without some actual sheep shearing! Behold in the series of photos below the little guy getting his haircut:
Another happy surprise was how fascinating the discussion on old textiles was -- the talk centered around hand woven items...now, I'm wanting to collect a few old pieces, of course...
Who knew how many colors can be produced from dyeying with mushrooms!!
The next two photos feature spinning flax to make linen. Wow, it was amazing. This was like spinning hair! Linen isn't easy to make:
After everything I've just shown you, I'm almost embarrased to show you plain, jane drop spindle spinning, but this was one of the big things I went to see --
And, now, the most amazing thing of the day -- the spinning of dog hair into yarn! I assumed it was be scratchy and nasty, but it was nice and soft and very pretty. My long-haired cat is now on the radar screen...
Ah, the cotton spinner -- again, I thought the yarn would be kind of rough and yucky but it was beautiful and soft and I want to try it!!!
Here we have a group of spinners happily spinning away under a tree in the beautiful summer sunshine -- I actually got a lot of good help for a couple of women there and my spinning is already better for it.
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