Spinning at Herba Lana

Well, I guess I’ve procrastinated long enough. Time to get down to it and actually write this up.

Sunday, 21 Feb, {yes I do realize that was more than a week ago now} I was fortunate enough to Visit Herba Lana where Monique Vierendeel was giving a spinning class. It was a beginning class, and Monique was kind enough to say that I probably needed to be in a more advanced class, and has since invited me to participate in a workshop in April where we will be trying out different fibers.

Herba Lana is only about 15 minutes outside the ring, NW of Brussels. It is in a thoroughly rural area, with farms all around. One of amazing things about Europe and Belgium in particular is how very quickly the landscape can change from urban to rural. There is far less urban sprawl, with endless suburbs and strip malls. Here we have cities, villages, and yes there are still a few suburbs, but then pouf, in 10 min. it’s the countryside, with barns, sheep, pear trees and fields of crops.

We started the day with a cup of tea and introductions, including why we wanted to spin.
Monique herself got into spinning by way of plants. She did her studies as an herbalist, and started out creating natural dyes, from there she got to fibers and finally to spinning. She is self-taught with the help of an extensive library in several languages, including English and German. She sells Majacraft and Louet spinning wheels, and rents wheels and drum carders as well as selling yarns and fiber out of her home. She has the best collection of Noro for that I’ve seen in Europe. She has both roving and top both dyed and undyed. The hand dyed fibers and yarn that she has created with her natural dyes are in muted, subtle shades, and really quite lovely. Monique is very committed to sustainable agriculture and has a strong preference to using the wool of local sheep and especially to the local breeds that are starting to disappear because of the proliferation of merino and cashmere, and the obsession we seem to have developed for “soft” fibers.
The other students: A couple of really interesting stories
• There was a couple from Antwerp who found a spinning wheel left out for trash pickup, as the husband’s preferred leisure activity is wood-working, and this poor un appreciated spinning wheel, was quite elaborate and complicated; it just looked too interesting to abandoned. This has developed into a specialization such that they now have six or seven really beautiful restored spinning wheels that they have found at various “brocants”. So they decided it was time to go the extra mile and learn to spin. The wife spent most of the day carding and blending wool, which the husband spun.
• There was a lady who had come here from London. She has a lovely dog of a somewhat rare breed. She’s kept the dog hair when she’s bathed and brushed him and with eight trash bags of dog hair she decided it was time to do something with it, knit a vest. To knit the vest she would need yarn; to get the yarn the dog hair would need to be spun; so she contacted Monique and to learn to spin. She had already spent several days with Monique learning to clean, and card the dog hair, with a resulting reduction from about 8kg to 3 ½.

Monique presented the plan for the day: we’d start directly with spinning (with fleece Monique had already cleaned – “blue de maine”).

Pre-draft the fiber, we’re using Bleu de Maine that Monique has cleaned. Spinning is a physical activity and it takes time for the hands and brain to get the connections going.

Then we would take a break later and be introduced to a fleece: skirting, cleaning and preparing it for spinning. Then back to the wheel to ply what had been spun.

It was quite interesting to see beginning spinners. It did make me realize that while I still feel I’ve a long way to go I have come quite a long way as well. It also reassured me that this isn’t something that comes completely naturally to most people.

Things I learned:
How to skirt a fleece – this explains to some extent why my previous efforts at cleaning the wool I was given, was less than successful.
Navajo ply: I have heard about this a lot and wanted to try it but couldn’t get my head around a written description. Monique showed me how and I’ve practiced on some naturally dyed fiber she gave me, after practicing on the Blue de Maine I spun that morning.
Interesting things I got to try:
spun some unusual fibers; (even carefully took notes and wrote down the names of the fibers to look up online and find out microns and all other random data I can, but can I find my notebook now? Not on a bet.)
spun directly from locks of the fleece (clean but neither combed or carded).

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