Make Your Own Custom Yarn with a Hand Spindle with Susan Hector 

LOCATION: 

Studio West 

587 Palm Canyon Drive, suite 208 

Borrego Springs, CA 

DATE & TIME: 

SATURDAY, February 20, 2027 

from 12:00 – 4:00 PM 

PRICE:

Members: $120

Non-Members: $145

 

DESCRIPTION: 

Make your own yarn! When you learn to use a hand spindle, your yarn is unique — you have complete artistic control: color, size, texture, and amount. It’s is a great way to learn the fundamentals of turning fiber into usable yarn for tapestry, crochet, weaving, and knitting. And, it’s portable; you can take your hand spindle anywhere and be creative.

This class will use simple suspended spindles to introduce you to the basics of spinning fiber into the yarn you want. We will be customizing your yarn by using fabric scraps, thread, deconstructed yarn, and dyed fiber. Once you see how to make your own yarn, you can add other materials limited only by your imagination. The instructor will provide hand spindles and other tools for classroom use, as well as a variety of fibers for spinning. The student will take home a custom skein of yarn they have made.

When you use a hand spindle, you become part of a long tradition of craftsmanship dating back thousands of years. Soon you will want to take a hand spindle with you everywhere, as many spinners do.

 

5 Student Maximum

BIO:

Susan is the spinning teacher for the San Diego Creative Weavers Guild. She teaches Beginning Spinning, Hand Spindle Spinning, Cotton Spinning, and Flax Spinning. She runs the spinning and weaving living history program at Threads of the Past in Old Town San Diego State Historic Park. She has taught hand spindle spinning to groups of state park interpretive staff and docents at Old Town San Diego, La Purisima, and Sonoma State Historic Parks.

Susan’s background is in anthropology and experimental archaeology. In 2024, she wrote a book on textile production in historic California. She won a national award for her Quilt From Scratch; an article about this project was published in Fibre Focus magazine. She has exhibited her handspun and handwoven projects at the Escondido Municipal Gallery, and was a panelist at the San Diego Fiber Fest in Liberty Station in 2025.

 

REGISTRATION:

 

Please register in advance for this workshop.

To become a Borrego Art Institute member click HERE