Transcript for

Episode 93:

What is Spin School?

What is Spin School anyway? And is it for you? I'm going to tell you all about it in this episode.

Hello there darling Sheepspotter! Welcome to episode 93 of The Sheepspot Podcast. I'm Sasha, and my job is to help you make more yarns you love.

Since I wasn't podcasting when started Spin School, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about it here so you all know what it is and why it is, and whether it might be right for you or for someone you know.

Spin School is a five-month course for new and self-taught spinners in the fundamentals of handspinning, which covers wheel mechanics and maintenance, worsted and woolen drafting techniques, plying, finishing (both woolen and worsted), using handspun yarn in projects, fiber, and how to spin common fiber preparations. So it introduces students to six of the Pillars of Skillful Spinning™ and one metapillar. It covers a lot.

Most of the curriculum of Spin School was developed for another program, The Sheepspotter's Society. The Sheepspotter's Society was a membership, rather than a class, and after teaching it for a few years I realized that it would work better in a class format because I really felt that I wanted all the students to encounter the pillars in a very specific order. I wanted everyone to start with wheel mechanics, then drafting, then plying, then finishing, etc. And this was an issue with the membership because not everyone joined at the same time.

The other issue with the membership was that if someone left the membership they no longer had access to the materials, and especially for those really fundamental first few pillars, that just didn't sit right with me. I wanted students to be able to return to those lessons if they needed to.

So, long story short, I made Sheepspotter's Society into a course. I went through all the materials, did some reorganizing (though not that much) and I reshot and reedited all the lessons. When I started Sheepspotter's Society I was a complete newbie at video. I was constantly having trouble with sound quality, I didn't know anything about editing video, and it was all a bit of a mess. In the four years of actually running The Sheepspotter's Society I learned a ton about lighting, and sound, I got a better camera, and, while I'm by no means a great video editor I did make a real effort to really learn how Final Cut Pro worked and I have gotten much better. And I wanted the course to reflect that, so I redid the entire thing. And I'm really proud of how it turned out.

I think there are three important things to know about Spin School.

First, it's designed to be a complete introduction to what spinners need to focus on as they are getting started, and I paid a lot of attention to how the information is sequenced. I think one of the most challenging thing about learning to spin is knowing what to work on when and I really wanted to solve that problem with a well-thought out sequence that would lead spinners through the entire yarn-making process, from setting up the wheel to spinning the singles, plying, finishing and completing a small project with their yarn. Then with those basics in place, the final module is designed to give students the tools they need to keep exploring on their own, by introducing them to a range of fibers and fiber preparations.

Second, it's designed for new and self-taught spinners who have been spinning for a while but aren't making progress as quickly as they would like. The vast majority of people who come into my community, The Flock, have taught themselves to spin. And a lot of them have kind of cobbled together a way of spinning, but there are often big gaps in their knowledge. So for them I've tried to create an experience that will help them fill in those gaps, unlearn any unhelpful habits they may have picked up along the way, and become more versatile. In some ways, the brand new spinners in the course have an easier time of it because they're starting with the best practices from the beginning.

Finally, because I had four years of refining the Sheepspotter's Society curriculum while working with real live spinners, I know that Spin School works, because it's worked for hundreds of spinners already. And I think there are a couple of reasons Spin School works. One is that we focus on one Pillar of Skillful Spinning™ at a time, so you won't get overwhelmed. There's so much to spinning and I think it can really overload people's circuits. So we take it step by step. The second is that there's lots of time to practice what you learn in each pillar. Because life intervenes; we're all doing way too much. So that practice time is really important.

If you think Spin School might be useful for you or for someone you know, we offer the course twice a year, in March and September. If you're interested, you can follow the link in the show notes to get a notification when we open. And if you know someone who might benefit from Spin School, could you share this episode with them? I would really appreciate it.

You can comment on this episode and discuss it with other listeners in a dedicated threat on The Flock, Sheepspot’s free online community for inquisitive hand spinners at all levels. I'll link to the thread in the show notes, which you can find at sheepspot.com/podcast/episode93.

That's it for me this time. I'll be back next time when we'll kick off our March focus, using your handspun yarns. While you're waiting, spin something! You know it will do you good.