Two Ply, 5 Ply - Oh My

After wrong turns and other assorted traffic woes Stinkerbelle and I finally arrived at Springwater last night and we were so glad that we did. Stinky had a "play date" with Linda (an instructor there) who has been teaching her how to weave. They warped up her little loom a few times and wove wonderful things.
Every now and then Stinky would pop in to see what we were doing in spinning class. We were laughing and talking and enjoying ourselves immensely as we did more work on the long draw before moving on to plying.

Here is a shot of my bobbin early in the evening. On the left side are singles I spun using a long draw. On the right are singles spun using my old comfortable short draw. The whit in the middle is Teesdale that was spun from the fold. I took this picture to capture the visual difference that the spinning method made. The long draw stuff is so much looser and softer. Sylvia says that the softness is always found in yarn spun long draw. The short draw stuff is crisper and more defined. I cannot wait to play with the long draw more.
As promised we did some work with plying last night. We started with a 2 ply and I learned how to produce a balanced yarn rather than the wickedly overspun stuff I usually do. It's funny to think that such a simple adjustment as feeding the yarn in faster would make such a huge difference. I still like the stuff I made before with it's tight, crisp appearance but after creating lovely rounded 3-ply yarn I saw the possibilities with that too. Oh the possibilities. I just want to stay home and spin endlessly.
We worked with chained singles last night too and I'm still kind of hopeless with it. Two nights of spinning class just wasn't enough. I don't have any local spinning buddies so, without classes, I learn from books and online sources. No matter how good the books are there is just nothing like having someone who really knows what they're doing there to demonstrate and correct your technique. Sylivia is a fabulous and patient teacher.
I really wish that you could all take classes at Springwater. If only they weren't closing... but wait... there's hope. I'm sure that locals have heard by now that there is a pledge drive going on to keep Springwater going. The goal is $100,000 and an anonymous donor has comitted to the last 10k. The good news is that, as of last night, the pledges have reached 80k so there's only a gap of about 10k. Yay!
I really hope that they are successful and find a way to continue. I would welcome the opportunity to take more classes there. There is just so much to learn. Stinkerbelle agrees. Last night as we left she told Linda that if she does another needle felting class she should call her. Stinky has been bitten hard by the needle felting bug. The next generation needs Springwater too.