Learning How to Weave and Spin Wool



On Wednesday, 31st October, Laura from Laura’s Looms and Izzy from Wildflower Weaver based at Farfield Mill visited the school to teach us how to weave and spin fleece.


They worked with Mr. Garrat’s class in the morning and Miss Ion’s class in the afternoon. Classes were split into two groups, Laura showed one group how to weave using cardboard looms. She had also brought a four shaft table loom and a heddle loom and everyone had chance to weave on these. Our shuttle was a plastic needle, which we threaded with coloured yarn. We then used the needle to guide the yarn over and under the warp threads on the cardboard looms. It was tricky and when you got to the end and started to come back it was important to remember to go over the warp if the previous row was under, as this formed the woven fabric.








Izzy took the other group and showed them how to take fleece, which had been thoroughly washed, card the fleece so all the fibres are in a line and straight, then spin the fleece using hand spinners into yarn. Izzy made it look easy but in fact it was very tricky and would need a lot of practice to produce consistent lengths of yarn. This process is very much the same as the spinners in Carlisle used in the 1800s.









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