After owning a spinning wheel for more years than I want to admit, I decided to pursue a Master Spinners certificate from Olds College in Alberta. As I write this, I’m about to get on with my Level 4 homework. In fact I should be working on the homework, not writing this. But the category looks so lonely without a post.
I heard about Fibre Week, what Olds College calls “the week dedicated to all things fibre”, at a Northern Fibres Guild meeting some years ago. Peggy came to talk about the Master Spinners class she had taken and I was interested. In fact, interested enough that when a friend asked “Do you want to go to Olds this year?” I said “Sure!” That was more than three years ago now. I did Level 2 to start as I thought Level 1 might be a bit elementary for me. But by the end of the week of class I decided to pursue my Master’s and hence I needed to get Level 1 homework to do. Once home I set aside Level 2 and just worked on Level 1. I managed to finish my homework, sent it off for marking and my instructor returned my work at Olds Fibre Week in July. Nice mark and good comments. Level 2 was only about half finished, so I asked for, and received, an extension on that. Then my second Fibre Week I took Level 3. Now, because we were temporarily retired, I finished Level 2 homework by October and then plowed directly into Level 3 and finished all but a weeks worth of homework by December. Long story short, by the time the 2009 Fibre Week rolled around, I was finished and had passed the first three levels. At time of publishing this post I have taken Level 4 but not really started the homework.
This past year and a half have been crazy and spinning has just had to take a back seat. But this is one way of getting on with that work, or so I hope. I’m very sorry to have fallen behind some of my classmates, but I do still have some great company as Adele needed a year off. We shall have to encourage each other in the coming six or so months.
Olds College is a very nice location for me, just an hour north of Calgary, so I get grandson time! Yeah! The college is also a lovely place to be with some nice gardens to walk through. Of course I have to include some flower photos!
