Spinning Art Yarns with Ann Campbell

A full house on Sunday for Ann Campbell's wonderful session on spinning art yarns! 
There was a good attendance by our own Guild members, and we were pleased to welcome lots of visitors who were drawn by Ann's fully deserved reputation as an excellent teacher and textile artist. 
Ann brought a delicious selection of dyed merino and silk fibres for us to choose from, and showed us how to create colourful and textured yarns.
We used drum carders to form batts of wool and silk in our choice of colours; spun them "thin and thick" and then plyed them with spun silk caps. We also created an "insertion" yarn with twists and knots of silk, and plyed this with commercial yarn - a great way to use up all those bits of fibre or yarn, and those cones of yarn which seemed such a bargain when we bought them.... 
Ann's useful tip to counteract the unwanted twist in an unbalanced yarn:  soak the hanks in very hot water with a tiny amount of detergent, spin gently and dry with a little weight at the bottom.
We were so busy that, once again, no-one took any photographs! (I promise to add some once my yarn is dry enough to photograph.)
Many thanks to Ann for her inspirational teaching.