Spinners today have such an abundance of fiber choices, sometimes it’s hard to know where to begin – and to know how to handle these precious materials once you have them in your hands. In this extensive treatment of the best the fiber world has to offer, Master Spinner Judith MacKenzie shares what she’s learned from deep experience in both craft and industry, with a hands-on teaching style that will give you inspiration, confidence, and good results.
This three-disk set covers:
- Silk, from cocoon to top to noil to magnificent blends
- Alpaca, both huaycaya and suri
- Camel
- Llama
- Paco-vicuña
- Yak
- Bison
- Cashmere
- Quiviut
You’ll learn how to prepare each fiber, how to spin it, how to finish your yarn, and the fascinating history and lore of each. Item #: EP2347
Disks: 3
This download is very interesting and informative to watch however, I felt it could've been more in depth.
Disk 1 covers silk. Judith Mackenzie explains the difference between Tussah Silk and other forms, shows the colour difference and shows some different forms silk is available in, including bricks. The viewer is shown how to spin silk from top preparation, silk hankies (the prinicples are the same for silk caps) and how to prepare silk noil for spinning. This disk, while not the primary reason I purchased this download, was very interesting, informative and very helpful to those who have not yet experienced spinning with silk.
Disk two covers the camelid family. Starting with an overview of the different animals and fibres constituting the camelids, Judith shows a depth of knowledge about these animals and their origins I wasn't expecting. As well as explaining the difference between Paco-vicuna and vicuna, she shows the differences in type of coat for many of the animals and gives tips on what to look for when buying raw fibre. The viewer is shown how to comb alpaca fibre for spinning, how to card it for spinning, the difference in yarn produced by spinning it from the cards, combs or the fold and how to spin a marbled yarn from two differently coloured silk blends both in top form. I was, however, hoping to be shown more about how to spin other camelid fibres from their down form and was disappointed that wasn't really covered.
Disk three covers other luxury fibres including Qiviut, Yak, Cashmere and Bison. Judith shows the difference in fibre length and suggests uses for each fibre. With the exception of Yak, again, most of the preparations used to demonstrate spinning on this disk were tops. I was hoping to be shown how to handle extremely short fibres such as cashmere and yak from their down form.
This download is of good quality and while the camera can not show the detail hoped for in some sections (eg. showing how tightly the alpaca was spun in the Bolivian ladies wrap Judith shows at the beginning of disk two) and being somewhat slow to show close ups of the yarns Judith spins throughout the series, largely, the viewer is given a detailed background of the use of luxury fibres, their origins and the difference in yarns possible using different spinning techniques with the one fibre.
Judith is sometimes talking to a different camera but I wouldn't like to be in a room with several cameras pointing at me, not knowing which one to look at and the viewer is still shown what she's talking about so it doesn't detract from the quality of the information being presented.
In summary, this download is worth the money however, if you're looking for tips on how to spin luxury fibres (other than alpaca) from a form other than top, you may be best to start with videos available on you tube, I found some of them much more helpful for this. *** Interweave Response *** Thank you for all of your valuable and considerate input. We’ll keep your suggestions and comments in mind when filming new workshops.
This set of videos is one of the most pleasant tutorials I have seen. Judith Mackenzies speaking manner is so nice and informative I was enthralled just listening to her. Everything is there as described, if you want to know about beautiful fibre, I can't recommend this highly enough. Just one thing to mention, Judith is quietly spoken, this may bother some, I found it refreshing.
I think she is wonderful.
Spinning Luxury Fiber (Video Download)
4.50
From Alpaca and Yak to Cashmere and Silk, learn to spin all these luxury fibers now available as a video download!
Google
|
 |
|
|