Fibre Prep February: Wrap-Up 2026

Every year, we come together to celebrate wool, fibre, and spinning. Fibre Prep February gives us a chance to slow down, focus on one idea, and really enjoy learning something new. We sample, explore, and stretch our skills together, all starting with fibre preparation. It is always a highlight of the year.

Wool & Bast Blends

Last year, Kim McKenna launched her course Spinning Bast Fibres: Tow Tops & Bast Blends, and it quickly became a source of inspiration for so many spinners in our community. The course centres on tow combed-top, which offers a gentle and approachable way to work with bast fibres. Throughout the course, Kim makes these fibres feel exciting. She guides us through blending bast fibres with a “familiar-to-us” wool, helping us feel and see how even a small addition of these fibres can transform a spinning experience and final yarn. Choosing this as our focus this year felt like an easy yes!

100% bast samples and bast blended yarns
Spinning Bast Fibres: Tow Tops & Bast Blends

Community-Made Blends & Yarns

We gathered our bast fibres: flax, hemp, ramie, and nettle, and got started making blends! One of the most joyful parts of Fibre Prep February is seeing what everyone makes. The spinning shared by our SweetGeorgia Community is endlessly inspiring and sparks so many ideas about where our own spinning could go next. Here are some of the members who offered to share their Fibre Prep February 2026 blends:

Kathy Cunha
Kathy Cunha’s Flax and Corriedale blend and sample.
Esther Lee
Esther Lee’s handspun bast samples.

SweetGeorgia Team-Made Blends & Yarns

We also brought the fun into the studio. During a few staff development days, we gathered to make blends together and again to sit down to spin them. These shared days are full of conversation, curiosity, and plenty of fibre on the tables.

We enjoyed various tools….

Staff development day
hand cards,
Staff development day
blending boards,
Staff development day
drum carders,
Staff development day
even a Lock Pop and diz!

We used all the bast fibres: Flax, Hemp, Ramie, and Nettle, along with our SweetGeorgia BFL+Silk and SweetGeorgia Corriedale Fibre for the wool blends. We asked everyone to bring in their wheel for spinning, and the variety of wheels was incredible!

Ashford e-spinner
Ashford e-Spinner 3
Daedalus Starling
Daedalus Starling e-Spinner
Ashford Joy
Ashford Joy Wheel
Schacht Ladybug
Schacht Ladybug Wheel
Ashford traditional
Ashford Traditional Saxony Wheel

Many of the team are still spinning their yarns (as is most of the community). We encourage you to come to the SweetGeorgia Community to see all the amazing yarns being spun. Here is just a glimpse of the yarns being spun by our team:

handspun bast wool yarn
Corriedale Tanzanite + BFL Silk Snowing in Tremblant + Nettle Prepared on a blending board

Fibre Prep February Resources

Even though the make-along has wrapped up, it is never too late to try bast fibres. A few Bast Fibres Sample kits are still available in the shop, along with an array of stunning hand-dyed fibres to pair with them, and the course is ready whenever you feel ready to try something new.

For even more inspiration, Kim inspired two incredible posts last year. In the first, Tanzanite Flax Brunch: Spin This Delicious Wool & Flax Blend Yarn, we feature the yarn she spun during the course, blending braids of fibre with flax and approaching colour and fibre in a way that really gets the imagination motivated. In the second, From Spark to Skein: Exploring Kim McKenna’s Handspun Blends, she continued to explore blends after the course, continuing to ask how else these blending ideas might evolve. That curiosity led her to spin multiple skeins using bast fibres alongside silk, angelina, and more.

Kim McKenna's handspun yarns
The array of yarn spun by Kim McKenna in her blending explorations!

School of SweetGeorgia

At the School of SweetGeorgia, we offer over 120 video-based courses covering spinning, weaving, knitting, dyeing, and more, with 28 courses dedicated entirely to spinning and fibre prep. There is always something new to explore!

The SweetGeorgia Community

The SweetGeorgia Community is a welcoming space for woolly folk to gather, share ideas, projects, inspiration, and support one another along the way. It is a place to feel connected to people who love talking about fibre arts just as much as you do. This is where we host our make-alongs and virtual gatherings, creating space for connection and conversation. We would love for you to join us.

Spinning at the SweetGeorgia Studio
Fibre Prep February 2026: spinning at the SweetGeorgia Studio

Thank You for Joining Us

Thank you for being part of the Fibre Prep February 2026 Make-Along. It is always such a pleasure to spin, learn, and explore alongside the community. We are already chatting about ideas for next year and cannot wait to see where it takes us.

In the meantime, we hope you will join us for some of our upcoming make-alongs, including Tour de Fleece in July, our annual Knit-along in August, Socktober in October, and our Winterful Weave-Along in November. There is always something happening, and we would love to have you with us.

Sign up for our newsletters to stay in the loop on new make-alongs, colourways, latest school courses, secret stash colourway reveals, recent pattern launches, and more.

The post Fibre Prep February: Wrap-Up 2026 appeared first on SweetGeorgia Yarns.



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