Last weekend I went to the Carolina Fiber Fest with some friends. It has been a long time since I’ve been to one of this type of event, and I’m afraid I forgot what the wool fumes do to me. For the most part, I was good, and didn’t spend a lot of money.
Unfortunately, I volunteered to teach my friends how to spin (Note to potential friends: Romilly is an enabler… you don’t want to shop textiles with me unless you want a new hobby, or a new toy to play with an OLD hobby…) And to do that, I had to have some of the same wool they were going to be using! 🙂
So I came home with five ounces of colonial roving. Pretty blue, turquoise and red. It sat in my bag until Tuesday. Tuesday I broke down.
I borrowed my friend’s new spindle – both of mine had yarn on them already… got to finish that! and I wanted to play with the weight on hers in any case so I knew what she could expect… it’s light. And two hours of work later, I have a skein of 130 yards of fingering weight singles… I may ply it later, I might not… and a little bit more. And I still have 2/3 of a bag of roving to go! I think I’m going to have a new shawl next fall. What do you think?
*I* think it’s time to dig the spinning wheel out of storage and see what I can do with it. I originally learned to spin with the intention of spinning my own crewel wool… Maybe I’ll pull that idea back out. Drop spindles are perfect for that, because you can spin a small amount of fiber pretty easily. I’ll keep you posted as to how that works!
Spinning your own crewel thread? I think I want to see that!