Jul 13, 20226 min read

Daedalus Fly-In Retreat Teacher Spotlight - Jillian Moreno

Updated: Jul 4, 2023

Jillian Moreno is the author of the best-selling book Yarnitecture: A Knitter’s

Guide to Spinning: Building Exactly the Yarn You Want.

She is passionate about investigating the structure of yarn and color, and using them in

intentional ways in knitting, stitching and weaving. She explores, questions and plays

with fiber and wants to take as many people as possible along for the ride.

She believes all yarn is beautiful and useful and enthusiastically encourages her students

to feel joy making and using their handspun.

Jillian believes in making yarn you like and want to use, she throws ‘must’ and ‘should’

out the window, though does enjoy the fun that comes from ‘it depends’.

Combining technical and intuitive approaches to spinning, students gain confidence as

well as solid skills to build any yarn they can dream of. In her classes Jillian shows there

is never only one way to make a yarn. Knowing and seeing the outcomes of a variety of

spinning skills frees students to build unique and useful yarns to use with any project

they have in mind.

In her classes Jillian students play and experiment with fibers, and color, gain an

enthusiasm for sampling, and come to see that their own definition of beautiful,

consistent or perfect yarn is the only one that matters.

Classes

Mix It Up: The Basics of Combining Color with Braids

3 hours $25 materials fee

This class focuses on the fun of mixing and blending painted braids with other colors and other braids. We’ll explore how to choose colors that go together, what affects color in spinning, and how to avoid mud in your yarn. You’ll learn how to mix and blend colors in the ply and draft, and how to choose the easiest fibers that work well together. While you practice your mixing and blending, I’ll show you how to choose colors to turn up or turn down the brightness of a braid, and the best way to stretch braids for projects. Finally, I’ll show you how to sample to learn the most about spinning braids for color, and how to use those samples as shortcuts for your future braid spinning. Level of Spinning: If you are familiar with your wheel, can spin a continuous thread, and have made a 2-ply yarn (even once), this class is for you. Students should bring: A wheel in good working order, at least three bobbins, a lazy kate, a niddy noddy, tags to mark samples, pen and paper to take notes, and any other spinning tool that makes you happy. Supplies Provided by Instructor: Our kit will include your choice of fibers and colors from the variety of wool and wool blend fibers in our Rolling Stash™

Match Game: Spinning for Knitting

3 hours $25 materials fee

So much about knitting a project out of handspun yarn is getting a good match the right fiber, prep, draft and ply. Maybe you’ve never knit anything from your handspun, have had some spectacular disasters, or are just looking for tips to make the process smoother. Too many spinners stress out about the list of measurements and the details, and the sampling that you should do. We’re going to throw "should" out the window. Spinning for knitting doesn’t have to be stressful at all. In this class, we’ll make it into a matching game. In this class, we’ll learn to decode and match commercial yarn. We’ll discuss why and how it’s easy to improve on a commercial yarn used in any pattern. With our spinning superpowers, we’ll learn a variety of ways to match the yarn we want for our project. We’ll learn the tricks to sampling quickly and exactly what and why you need to measure to get a consistent, predictable yarn for a project. Bring a pattern you are interested in knitting, if you’d like to decode the yarn it calls for in class. Level of Spinning: If you are familiar with your wheel, can spin a continuous thread, and have made a 2-ply yarn (even once), this class is for you. Students should bring: A wheel in good working order, at least three bobbins, a lazy kate, a niddy noddy, tags to mark samples, pen and paper to take notes, and any other spinning tool that makes you happy. Supplies Provided by Instructor: Our kit will include your choice of fibers and colors from the variety of wool and wool blend fibers in our Rolling Stash™

Beyond Barber Pole: Blending Colors at the Wheel with Marls

3 hours $25 materials fee

Barber pole, peppermint stick, humbug, piebald, or marled, when you think of these yarns do you think of a color plied with white or black? There is much more to marling than these starkly contrasted yarns. In this class, we will spin all kinds of marled yarns. In the process, we’ll learn about contrast and value and their affect on marled yarns. You’ll learn about optical blending and how draft and yarn size affect color. Marled yarns can be used sparingly as transitions between colors, or all over to make yarn and fabric with deep dimensional color. Using natural, solid, and variegated fibers, we’ll spin single, double, and intermittent marls with a variety of contrasts. We’ll work marls on singles, 2-ply, and 3-ply yarns to learn how ply influences color, and discuss how best to use marls in making cloth. Any way you spin them; marled yarns bring excitement to your spinning! Level of Spinning: If you are familiar with your wheel, can spin a continuous thread, and have made a 2-ply yarn (even once), this class is for you. Students should bring: A wheel in good working order, at least three bobbins, a lazy kate, a niddy noddy, tags to mark samples, pen and paper to take notes, and any other spinning tool that makes you happy. Supplies Provided by Instructor: Our kit will include your choice of fibers and colors from the variety of wool and wool blend fibers in our Rolling Stash™

Draft-O-Rama : Woolen and Worsted Prep and Draft

3 hours $25 materials fee

Are you new to spinning? Know how to make yarn, but not sure about the difference between woolen and worsted, or even what it means? In this class, we’ll explore the mysterious and sometimes daunting world of woolen and worsted. You’ll learn woolen and worsted drafting techniques, how they are different, how they can be similar, and what is the key factor for each one. (Hint: It’s not the direction you draft.) You’ll learn how to set up your wheel and get the right rhythm between hands and twist to make spinning a woolen or worsted draft easier than you think. As you practice your drafting, we’ll talk about how woolen and worsted drafts change a yarn’s characteristics and what that means to your knitting and other fiber crafts. Working with both top and roving you’ll learn how to make each a draft work in sync with different fiber preparations, wools, and blends and what type of yarn you can expect. Is a short forward draft always worsted? Is longdraw the only woolen draft? What about spinning from the fold? Can I spin top woolen? Which draft is good for sweaters? For socks? You will leave this class knowing the answers to those questions and with the satisfaction and confidence of knowing several ways to draft woolen and draft worsted. Level of Spinning: If you are familiar with your wheel, can spin a continuous thread, and have made a 2-ply yarn (even once), this class is for you. Students should bring: A wheel in good working order, at least three bobbins, a lazy kate, a niddy noddy, tags to mark samples, pen and paper to take notes, and any other spinning tool that makes you happy. Supplies Provided by Instructor: Our kit will include a variety of commercially and independently dyed wool and wool blend woolen and worsted preparations

Spinning Singles: Structure and Color

3 hours $25 materials fee

Learn the ins and outs of spinning a singles yarn that won’t bias when knit. The secret to a sound singles is getting the twist right, plus practice. We’ll discover exactly the type of twist a singles yarn needs and learn to measure it both with tools and with just your hands and eyes. You’ll get to practice your new twist by exploring spinning singles with variety of fibers, blends, and preparations, to see how each change effects singles. We’ll talk about the different ways to finish your singles, and how best to use your singles yarn. Think you are out of luck with playing with color and spinning singles? Think again! We’ll make variegated, gradient, intermittent, and marled yarn while we combine colors, naturals, and braids. You’ll learn about fractal singles and find out what happens when we combine different color methods into a singles yarn for a kaleidoscope of color. You’ll leave this class with the inspiration and You’ll leave this class with the inspiration and know-how to make your perfect singles yarn. Level of Spinning: If you are familiar with your wheel, can spin a continuous thread, and have made a 2-ply yarn (even once), this class is for you. Students should bring: A wheel in good working order, at least three bobbins, a lazy kate, a niddy noddy, tags to mark samples, pen and paper to take notes, and any other spinning tool that makes you happy. Supplies Provided by Instructor: Our kit will include your choice of fibers and colors from the variety of wool and wool blend fibers in our Rolling Stash™