Cherri Hankins

Create Your Badge

8-year old spinning prodigy!!!!

An 8 year old came into the studio the other day to learn to spin, and she blew me away. She was spinning like a top in 20 min! It was so impressive that I shot a quick video with my still camera. Here is the clip:

Weaving – after-school programs

Here are some pics of an after-school program that I’m a part of through one of the art centers. We are weaving fabric to make drawstring bags. I love the kids, and check out the crazy, crazy shoes;0)

Table loom weaving class

The Tues night class has become a table loom weaving class by default! Each person in the class is currently working on a table loom. This means they are able to take their work home week to week and plow through much more in a month than otherwise possible.  The class isn’t closed to floor loom weavers, it’s just the way this has worked out. There are openings in the class, in case you would like to join us. We meet on Tues nights from 6:30 – 9:00 pm. Because we lost so much time to bad weather, we are making up a week the last day of the month, Feb. 28 from 1:00-3:30. We don’t usually meet on Sunday, we have missed so much this month due to weather.

Here are pictures of what’s going on:

The Brown will be a scarf, and the blue is more of the ecclesiastic stole. It’s really coming along, as are these two weavers.

See you in the studio.

C

Philanthropic sewing

Today, a second Saturday, we made dresses for the little girls who benefit from the mission in Kenya. We completed 3 dresses in Jan, and another 8 today! So we have completed 11 dresses altogether.  Hooray! Here are some pictures of our day:

Studio hours for Thurs 2/11 and Friday 2/12

The studio will be open for regular studio hours on 2/11 and 2/12.  That means It opens at 9:30 on Thurs, and is closed at 2:30 on Thurs.  On Friday, it’s open from 9:30 – 5 pm, and I am teaching private lessons during most of those work hours. If you are looking for private weaving, spinning or felting lessons, I do have some private lesson slots open, and there are openings in the Tues. morning and in the Tues. evening classes.

Hope to see you in the studio.

C

Class IS meeting tomorrow 2/09/10

As of now, Monday night, class is meeting tomorrow at 9:30 am.  Although the snow may begin during class, I don’t believe it will get so bad that we can’t get home. Besides, there are suffficient windows to see how bad the weather is.  Should we not be able to get to class tomorrow (I had not trouble getting there today), you all know that you are welcome another time during the week. From the looks of things, there will be a Mon or Wed night class beginning the week after the big snow…. So maybe 2/17.

See you in the am.

Cherri

Hansen mini spinner

I’m a hand-spinner and a Fricke fan. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the smoothest spin on the market. There are times, however, when I need an e-spinner, and I’m starting to shop around. The Fricke’s have a very durable looking e-spinner, and someone has a ‘butterfly’ out there, that’s really quiet, but it has an exposed, horizontal drive band that just seems to me like an invitation for problems when moving around with it.

The Hansen’s, however have a very small, self-contained, quiet e-spinner called the Hansen mini-spinner that has me intrigued. I want to say, that e-spinners aren’t cheap, and I’m just beginning the search. If some of these mfg. loaned their equipment to me to review….. it might be helpful. But….. I don’t have the readership that ravelry has, so such loans are probably out of the question. Hmmm, I don’t need 5 e-spinners, so I guess whichever one I get is going to get the review. From the outside, looking in, I’m going to tell you that Hansen, with it’s compact styling, and tiny footprint, enclosed motor, etc it’s pretty much got my heart. BUT $700+ is kind of a pipe dream for me. I’ve been mulling putting a motor on the upright shaft of one of my wheels. We’ll see what I come up with. If you go to youtube, glacialwanderer has an e-spinner that he basically shows you what you need to make it! I think that guy is very cool. His mind is exponentially more brilliant than mine, and I marvel at it;0)

Well, let’s watch, and see whether I come up with what it takes to get that mini spinner. It’s definitely on my “equipment for 2010” list to buy, and review. I’ll also keep you posted on how difficult I find it to add a small motor to my existing spinning equipment and make an e-spinner of my own. Bye for now.

C

Finishing up the sheltie yarn

I’m almost finished spinning the 3 shelties. Here are some pictures of the yarn. I actually spun it on 3 different spinning wheels. I spun the light sheltie on my Fricke, the dark on my Joy (ashford) and plied them on my Louet s-15.  I’ve never done that before, but I couldn’t focus on this particular job in a linear fashion. 3 dogs, 3 spinning wheels. makes an illogical sense, right?