This new year is starting off with promise. We shall see if it delivers. I spent the holiday break at the Maryland man cave, helping pack up. I spent three-quarters of December at home — repairing, reorganizing, recycling, donating. There will be more. This meant I did not spend the end-of-year break gaming or crafting much. Since I could see this was where the schedule was going, I decided to force myself to take a break. I signed up for Esther's "Sculptural Corespinning" class at STITCHES Expo at Home.
You may remember I have taken art yarn classes from Esther before. Esther has fabulous creative energy which, of course, attracts other people with similar energy or a desire to have such. And this is one of the advantages of taking a class over watching a video or reading a book. There's interaction. Someone else in class does something that I wouldn't have done, but gets an intriguing result. There's a reason the history of great art, music, literature, even science is filled with stories of a group of people influencing each other into greater success. Positive interaction in an environment of creative safety leads to innovation. It is one of the best things about being human.
For this class, Esther sells a kit from her website. While you certainly can compile these items on your own, it was nice to receive them in the mail, ready to go. I'm not sure I would have had time to hunt things down during the busy holidays. And Esther has such a lovely sense of color and texture combinations, I'm always happy to see what she puts together. The kit I received had two batts in a green-blue colorway (one bright, one pastel), as well as holographic sequins, turquoise blue sequins, Wensleydale locks in both natural colors and rainbow dyed, gold sparkle, periwinkle sparkle, undyed roving, two small packets of brightly-colored silk for add-ins, lime green eyelash scrubby yarn, and the really important stuff for the class — the cores. There were three cards of 5 yd elastic core, 250 feet of 26 gauge wire, and two different light wires with 20 lights on each. I received a blue light wire (which I haven't used yet) and a light wire alternating white and green.
Class also gave me an excuse to stash dive. Art yarn is a fantastic excuse to use up all those little bits lying around — fiber, yarn scraps, beads, sequins. It also makes me look at the undyed stuff and think about getting out the dye pots.
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| Wire core and light wire core at top, elastic core at bottom. |
This class is not a beginning corespinning class. Esther informally called it "Corespinning 201." We started off with the elastic core, which is the trickier stuff to use. You can't put your hands in the usual positions, because you have to keep the elastic stretched while you are wrapping it. Esther shows you how to do this. The elastic also eats up way more fiber than you might expect, since you are essentially spinning a much longer core and then letting it contract on itself. The resulting yarn would be fun on cuffs (sleeves, socks, legwarmers) or at a neckline.
The second technique involved the wire and light wire. Both are spun identically and, happily, are much easier to spin than elastic core. There are some tricks to getting it started. But once it is going, it is an easy spin if you are already a competent corespinner. There are also some tricks at the end to keep the wrapped fiber from unwrapping. For the wire, I spun an overspun singles first, then wrapped to create a coiled yarn. For the light wire, I spun straight from the batt, although I did add a little sparkle as well as sequins. I threaded a little bit of fiber through each sequin. That was slow. I may rethink and next time add sequins simply by stringing them on a thread. And while you can't really string beads or sequins on light wire, you could string them on regular wire.
I'm not yet sure how I will use these yarns. Wrapped wire and lights have home
decor possibilities. They might also being interesting in costumes or holiday
decorations. And I have a stalled art yarn project named "Mutara Nebula." I've gathered all the fiber, but not gotten around to playing with it. Now
I think I know why. A space-themed yarn definitely needs a long light wire core to
represent the stars.
Creative possibilities!
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