Whatever happens to strike my fancy, but surely some sort of fiber content.
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| Like The Queen Whatever happens to strike my fancy, but surely some sort of fiber content. |
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0 Comments:Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom] Sunday, November 23, 2003 Here is an interesting conundrum. Why is it that fiber you touch in the summer feels scratchy but in the winter feels soft? Well, of course it isn’t a conundrum - but it’s gratifying that stuff I bought last May at Md.S&W will be f un to work with - just so long as I don’t plan on working with it in our hot, sticky, humid, stultifying, VA summers. (So why do I live here? Eh - it’s Virginia, sugah.) Anyway - in the midst of massive pre-Thanksgiving cleaning - which includes digging through the chests for tablecloths which must be laundered and aired (over several days) to get the pest repellent scent out of them, I uncovered two enormous bags of Hershey’s Chocolate Brown wool - a merino and a lambswool roving each - the most flattering color for me. In the frenzy of shopping that is Md.S&W, I thought both were soft enough, but once home they felt a wee bit scratchy. Periodically throughout the summer I’d fondle them and feel that prick of dismay - that I had pounds and mounds of something I didn’t like. I spun a wee bit up and produced lumpy yarn. Ahh, the joy of storing things in chests - you can forget about them. So when I pulled the bags out of the chest yesterday I was surprised at the soft cushiony feel to the rovings. I pulled out a small length and pre-drafted it, joined it to the merino on the wheel and spun way. Oh. My. A lightbulb moment. This stuff works up better if it isn’t pre-drafted. Well, lawsee. And yippee. It’s roving - not top - so the fibers, while mostly lined up, are not sleekly so. I can easily grab a nice pinch from my so-called drafting triangle and keep the yarn both airy and fairly consistent in amount. This is quite exciting. I am still a new enough, self-taught spinner - a “real” spinner might look patronizingly at my work. Certainly the actual skills I have are a long way from what I see demonstrated by others. This is no false modesty - I’ve only been at it a year and I have every hope of becoming a fine spinner. Certainly I expect to improve over time. It is the fun of discovering something like this - that, though I must still pre-draft merino roving, I shan’t necessarily have to do so with a different preparation - that I suspect a teacher could introduce me to much sooner. Darling guests are coming for dinner - he is a neat-nut - and her display of what she calls her messiness is what I can produce after a month of hard scrubbing - and so, though I don’t believe I have to equal their sparkle, of much greater importance to an ENFP feeler, I feel I must make an effort to at least rid the house of the last vestiges of summer. (Spider webs, my dears - like white shoes after Labor Day, unacceptable past Oct. 31.) I really like these folk and want them to be comfortable in my home. Most of the work was done yesterday, though there is still the kitchen to tidy. But between that and supper time I plan to organize stash - I don’t like not knowing what I have and besides, it is now spilling out of its bins, tumbling round the assorted baskets and boxes already stacked out into the room. Who knows what treasures lurk in this pile? Surely some of my size 7 needles! posted by Bess | 7:23 AM |
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