What a lovely day for my sister and me.
Our fight departed slighly late but we actually arrived on time to Atlanta. Got our rental car with relative ease, and departed for our drive to North Carolina with shining sun, blue skies and temperatures in the high 40’s. There wasn’t a flake of snow to be seen anywhere. The drive was not particularly impressive until we started to get into the boonies of Georgea and into North Carolina. By that time it was about 4:30 and the sun was so perfect in the sky, casting this golden hew on everything. I wanted to stop the car every few hundred yards to take pictures. But, by this time we’d run out of room to spare to get to the school on time so I only got a few opportunities.
Here are a few of the photos I managed to get.
Fence in the Setting Sun
Cool Funky Cabin
We arrived just in time for final check-in, went directly to orientation, and from there directly to dinner, which was family-style and quite delicious. We then had just enough time to throw our bags into our rooms (which were much nicer than we anticipated) and arrive a few minutes late for the evening portion of class tonight.
From 6:45 until 9:00 we both learned something we knew absolutely nothing about. By the end of the night I had learned how to make yarn on a drop spindle. It wasn’t perfect, but I seemed to be picking it up fairly quickly and was happy with the progress I’d made by 9:00.
My sister enjoyed her evening portion of the bowl turning on a lathe class, but seemed a little frustrated by having a little bit too much assistance by the teachers. She may start over with a fresh bowl blank tomorrow.
Tomorrow we plan on getting up at 6:00 a.m. and take a quick drive around the area for to see what’s here and take some photos in the early-morning sunlight. Breakfast is at 8:15 and class starts at 9:00 and pretty much goes all day with a short break for lunch. By the end of the day tomorrow we should all have learned the general basics of spinning on a spinning wheel, which should be quite interesting. Apparently we will not be learning carding and preparing wool, as there is simply not enough time in the short weekend to cover all of the basics. We will learn how to pick a good fleece tomorrow and we’ll wash it as well. It’s all very interesting. There are I think 8 women in the class and none of us have every done spinning of any kind so we’re all total beginners and there was a lot of laughing going on.
At night we’ll have an opportunity to spend more “open studio” time working on projects or visiting the other buildings and see what they are doing there. They teach so many classes in so many different arts it’s mind boggling.
Hopefully I’ll be able to update more tomorrow. There’s lots to learn!
sounds wonderful! I am so glad the weather hasn’t hampered your trip. Looking forward to hearing about your day today.
Aimee – call me when you’re back, I have a friend in your area who does her own yarns, she even made yarn from the neighbor’s sheep dog and did a sweater out of it. She dyes her own wools and does amazing stuff. I would gladly introduce you two on FB, I think you’ll have alot in common and maybe she can help you get to the next place in the spinning. Too funny though, I heard your message about being at Spinning Class and I couldn’t imagine why you went all the way to NC to take a spinning class that you could’ve done at your local LA Fitness. LOL.