Teenagers Learning to Spin Yarn

What a blast they are having as they are learning to draft their roving and put a bit of twist in it to turn the wool into yarn.  Each has found their own way to approach it.  Some sit, some stand, some talk, some don't, and it's all good as I see them coming in at lunch to do more.

In the corner we see junior Clarisa Bloemhof having way too much fun, while junior Daphne Chiang takes a much more serious approach.  We also see junior Justin Jang laughing because he knows I'm taking everyone's picture and I'm going to post it for the world to see.  Juniors Jon Madamba, Alice Hong and senior Vinisha Kothari are also completely focused on their task.

Junior Young Song and senior Tiffany Kang, in the rear, are both using the thin metal pipe on the fountain of the sink to ply their yarns, and senior Andrew Rim is checking his ply before he winds onto his bobbin storage area.  

I make the spinning hooks for them from hanger wire.  I can get 4 hooks per hanger.

What was really fun to watch was junior Bianca Tolentino plying her yarn all the way across the room.  If you look closely you can see her yarn stretched over senior Maryann Rui's head.  Bianca is the one in the pink jacket.

But the person who probably took the most joy in learning to spin was junior Kaili Hamada.  Here she and senior Julia Kim are skeining their yarns on the Niddy Noddys.

The students were also required to dye their yarns with either the Rit dyes that were leftover from the tye-dyeing unit, or with packages of Kool-Aid.  Here we see 8th grader Annie Lin on the left and seniors Sam Kim and Esther Woo dipping their yarns in the baths.

Here is Kaili again after she took her skein off the Niddy Noddy.  She's created a new look for head bands.  Love the joy radiating off her sweet face.

The finished products (above).  

Some of the dyed yarns drying in the shade, and below, they have butterflied them up to hand in and be evaluated.  I grade them on effort and craftsmanship, and offer up tons of extra credit for spinning up more then they needed.

A special thanks goes out to my dear friend, Lori Lawson, of Capistrano Fiber Fiber Arts for donating all her beautiful hand dyed rovings for the kids to work with.