Latest handspun and some stash gloating

Well, since I only have another day left before I'm back in school and back into the non-stop studying and art-churning routine, I figured I'd spend some time here sharing some photos of the fiber I've been working with.



This is 2 ounces worth of a lovely warm brown alpaca that I spun up on my drop spindle-- so far I think it's the largest amount I've ever spun up using a spindle...

I got it from Harmony Wools Alpaca, which happened to have a booth over at the John C. Campbell Folk School Fall Festival I went to back in...oh, October-ish?...

It's been a busy year.

AND...here's the final product, after I plied it using my drop spindle. Using my wheel to ply it after spending all that time spinning it on my spindle just felt like cheating. Oddly enough, I think this is my most balanced ply yet.



I found it to be a wonderful spin...I usually prefer batts to roving, and when I *do* spin with roving it tends to involve a copious amount of pre-drafting...not so with this.

Lucky for me, I bought more!



From left to right: 2 ounces of an even softer squooshier alpaca roving that I will definitely need a lighter spindle for, 2 ounces of a grey alpaca/blue silk blend roving (both were gotten from Harmony Wools Alpaca), and about 2 ounces of some gorgeous mossy green mohair locks from Good Fibrations, who were also at the John C. Campbell Folk School.

I regret not buying more mohair...this I purhchased for an art yarn I've got in my head, but a couple of ounces would have been great for a nice floofy curly yarn spun from the lock...

I'm going to make an effort this semester to set apart some time off during the weekends to work on some non-school related art and crafts stuff. Its going to be difficult-- I'm taking both Brit Lit 2 and Visual Literacy, which apparently are both writing-intensive classes...not that art or british literature are subjects that I find at all difficult to write about, but deadlines are such creativity killers. Blech.

Gah...gotta think positive! At least I'm taking textile design and weaving again. Can't wait to get back on the loom...

Ciao!

- The Bloated Ewe Read more!

Spinning at the Fall Festival

Weeeelll....

Last time I blogged I left off where I had *just* gone to do a bit of demonstrating with my sister at a local fall festival. For about four hours I spun, carded, and crocheted a shawl for myself-- something that I would have probably done at home on any average weekend, fall festival or not. It was our very first time doing a demonstration on our own, without the spinner's guild, but I feel we came well-prepared. Amazingly enough our booth was placed next to the basket weaving booth, set up by the woman who did the hand-spinning demonstration last year, who also happened to be a member of the spinner's guild as well.

And if that wasn't quite a coincidence itself, she also recognized our drum carder. Turns out she was the very first owner, and she had given it to Sharon, who then gave it to my family.

Wow.


Other than spinning, carding, and crocheting, I had tons of fun chatting with demonstrators at the other booths and doing a bit of shopping. My sister and I both purchased really great face jugs from these kids who made them at the local high school. I was AMAZED that they hadn't sold out, because they were really great pieces and the price they were selling them at was a steal. Seriously, I would have bought everything if I had the money. But I only bought one; it has these two screaming faces on the very top, and the mouths are actually the eyes for the main face on the jug. Very Halloween. I definitely need to share pics of it some time....

Enough talking; here's a bunch of pictures!

Here's Mary at her Ashford traditional spinning wheel.

Here's moi. My louet isn't quite traditional.



Here is our little setup.

Here were Gae's basket weavings. Definitely putting kudzu to good use!


This was Paula, the butter-churning lady. She sewed her whole outfit.


Making apple cider with a cider press...

Here were some hand-made dulcimers.

By no means the gist of it, but my camera was low on memory...

Anyway, hopefully I'll get back to blogging again soon, because I've been doing some spindling with some alpaca I bought over at the John C. Campbell Folk School's fall festival and I've been meaning to blab about how that's all coming out. So until then...

-The Bloated Ewe

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Rambouillet-Finn=Done.

I've finally plied all that rambouillet-finn roving I was spinning up; thank God I didn't put it aside for later. It came out pretty nice, even though I kept freaking out about whether I was over-plying or under-plying it. Whenever it seemed like it was balanced it would come out all wilty and crappy looking, but when I finally gave it a tight enough ply so that it looked nice and beaded it would started coiling on itself. But since I'd rather block a garment to remove whatever energy is left than have to deal with ugly yarn, I decided to give it some extra twist.

It reall came out nice, didn't it?

It's 16 wpi, basically a fingering weight yarn. Finest I've ever spun. The little Bauhaus-esque block on my hand next to my handspun helped me figure out that little technical detail. I picked it up over at The Spinner's Emporium on etsy. Really nifty, and yeah, I know I could have just wrapped the stupid yarn around a ruler and ended up with similar results, but this little poplar wpi gauge looks way cooler than a ruler, and the price didn't make me suffer. Plus, it matches my louet. Rulers don't do that.

Now that I'm done with the rambouillet-finn, I've been working alot more on my drop spindle. It used to feel really awkward, but now that I've been spinning so much with the wheel it no longer feels difficult. I just grabbed some chunks of fuchsia and dark navy corriedale I had floating around and decided to spin random pieces of them together; once I finish that I'll spin up some other wierd colour combo and Navajo-ply them together, because I've been really wanting to learn how to Navajo-ply.



I'm still not quite sure what to make of it, I'll wait 'till it's completely done before I make up my mind.

Now I'm off to work.

Later.

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