Get-um while they are young

News of the weird would like to hear that every time (o.k. it's only been twice) I set out to adopt a child, young people I have unofficially "adopted" over the the years magically appear. Maybe they appear just to meet the new member of my great extended family, maybe it is to catch some "mother energy" from me before every drop is sucked from my soul and I am unable to remember my own name. This time around the daughter of a man she and I last saw alive in 1985 found me through a six degrees of separation chain that ended in a reunion over the weekend. She is grown and wonderful and wanting desperately to find any pieces of memory of her father that might still be lurking on the planet. It was a wonderful reunion but the best part was meeting her 7 year old daugher, ...my distant granddaughter of sorts and what did I do?
TEACH HER TO SPIN OF COURSE!

The Silent Auction Lesson

Silent Auctions-love them. Know one? E-mail me.
This time however, it was me doing the offering at the Strawberry Festival at my Quaker Meeting House- 'A Spinning Lesson Guaranteed-You will spin a hank of yarn.' My optimistic victim winning bidder, thankfully gave me lots of lead time to practice but how in the whirled was I actually going to send someone home with a presentable piece of handspun considering the hank my last optimistic victim did after an entire evening was thick and thin-as in THICK for about 2 yards and then really really thin .


The W.B. arrives, I have fiber spread over the entire livingroom. Raw greasy fleece, lbs. and lbs. of colored Merino and assorted other lovelies. I like to start people off with Corriedale, because it is so easy to handle. The W.B. loves the crimpy Cotswold fleece I paid a pretty penny for at MSWF last year. Not a beginner fiber but we roll in it for a bit.

Finally we begin. My plan- have her start on pencil roving. WOW- harder than I thought it would be and it doesn't look so good. I think top or batts might have been easier. Then a brain storm---throw in some gorgeous mixed stuff

I've been saving from MSWF and have her spin them togother. It will be fatter, easier, and possibily more satistifying. I pull off strips and lay them along side the pencil roving. Voila- The W.B. is delighted. It is easy to see the twist, the bobbin is filling up and most importantly-

it looks like very cool yarn. WOW- I wish my first handspun looked like this.

Doggone Cheap Sheep

April 2006, I'm at my little bros. house in Waynesboro VA. I see a flyer in 7-11, yes, 7-11, for Sedalia Spring Fiber Festival, in Bedford VA. On a whim we go and one of the gems from that day is this roving that I bought from a 86 year old man and his big ole dog. The man processes and dyes the roving himself on his farm on the edge of valley . I pick it up. It feels great. No machine evenness, fresh. I read the label.

Dog, mohair

Cormo

I love it so much I buy two Colorways.

It's quintessential quaint.

I love it even more on the bobbin.

I'm already dreaming about next year. -April I think it is. The sweetest little fiber festival in the East. http://www.springfiberfestival.com/index.htm Leave me some dog hair. (Cheingora)

Where the Buffalo Roam

My partner and I in a car late last spring.
D.P. "Was that a Buffalo?"
ME: "Oh my god, is that American Cashmere on the hoof?"

We stop and ask the neighbors until the owner, Ray, is I.D.Ed and a phone # given. Ray, also owns the only gasoline station in town and is mildly amused that I want a bag of Buffalo hair. He tells me the field is full of the stuff and if I can help him find a way to make $$ off of it, he'll give me all I can carry.

The next morning--there's a scary bag of hair/dung/ vm waiting for me at the Citgo. As a spinner you run into some pretty gnarly dark corners with the stuff you plan to wash, dye and beautify, but this was truly over the top. It looked like what our friend Roberto pulled out of the shower drain last year that made me want to sell the house. It's hair, not fleece, not silky llama hair, but coarse you-know-what textured hair. Ooooooowwwwww.



SO how does one begin? I do an internet search and find to my great consternation...the directions for how to clean Buffalo hair and separate the down, or good stuff, from the unspeakable hair is patented. YES patented, read the whole "hairy" story here:http://www.girlfromauntie.com/journal/index.php/2005/the-buffalo-gal/


So I figure, what do I have to lose. I have a garbage bag full of yuck with potential. First, I dump it all a big laundry tub and start going through it...then I remember left over rubber gloves from this week's hair change...Finally I find that the buffalo down looks really different than the guard hairs and is all together in one clump. Good news, except it also looks like it may be felted already.

On the left is guard hair


On the right the good stuff

Look at all the Petty Pusses Pretty Purses

The only thing that separates us from the animals is our ability to
accessorize. -Clairee Belcher, in "Steel Magnolias"

Somewhere along the line my yarn obsession branched out from how to stuff it all in my Yarn Barn(left) to how to pack it out in fashion. My primary directive became how to "look cool haulin' the wool" without spending actual possible stash enhancement capital.

My first bags were Chic, Lightweight and imprinted with a timeless logo, however, I found they were not as durable I had hoped and my partner keep "borrowing" them when she walked the dog...strangely, they sometimes disappeared. ( Coincidently, this was during my Eyelash yarn phase)

Next came what seemed like a great find at my local slightly used boutique. If I remember correctly it was 1/2 Price Saturday that day, why back before the hordes of badly behaved bargin hunters overwhelmed the beleaguered security guard and...oh sorry, I think that case is still pending. Anyway, in retrospect, this may not have been a much better choice than taking a job at Value Village but here she blows...

The not so cool bag . Close up ... smell the lobster? I wonder if a Kennedy owned this bag?

After the Kinnybunkport debaucle, it seemed prudent to review my primary directive. It seemed like there was more TO this bag issue. Finally it hit me- THE RIGHT BAG FOR THE RIGHT YARN. It wasn't about being cool. It was about being aligned. Garbage bags for garbage yarn, Maine bags for wool sweater projects...

Silk bag for Silk yarn projects...

Sock Monkey Bag for Socks...

Sock monkeys meditate too. Is it me or does this monkey look like an extreme makeover BEFORE the reveal.

Then there is the yarn condo. A gift from dear mamma. It is pretty groovy and has lots of little compartments AND a shoulder strap. I love the little holes in the top for the yarn to peek out. It is my go to bag when hauling roving or trying to hide new stash from not so new partner. Mom claims it was a steal from http://collectionsetc.com

And finally my HRC messenger bag- http://www.hrc.org/

Trying to look festive with wild, party roving. This bag has taken the train to New York, a plane to the Bahamas and my little old Rav 4 to many many fiber festivals. It has held silk hankie, soy silk, ingeo, llama, alpaca, mohair, dog hair and 10 different kinds of wool. It is a bag that loves diversity.

P(r)issy Premier

TODAY of all days, the first day of my Blog

I wanted to be here..........
A wheel, a woman, a warm sun.
Is there anything more?

But I had to be here......

A Sub(urban) High School

"Chalked" full of teenagers

Just to make myself go this morning I had to sing my morning song that goes like this...

"Gotta go to work today, If I don't then I won't get paid. And we'll have no food to eat or socks on our feet. Sooo... I Gotta go to work today. "

The pookie 5 year old cuddled up with me singing backup said" but mommy, you can just make socks...and indeed I can!. Just finished my first pair of them anyway.

Paton's Kroy some generic Paton's pattern and size 3 dps that by my knitting groups standards seem on the order of kindergarten pencils but all the same cuz' pookie 5 year old has announced she's not wearing them because they are not pink and tight.

More later...perhaps I will have recovered and be less pissy and more prissy.