No pictures. I do not want to incriminate myself.
The very same people who were SUPPOSED to shoot me if I bought a fleece were very eager to split "a few" of them with me. This is a great way to do it, though - who really wants an 8lb fleece?? I lost a couple of auctions so I came up short of ridiculous. (One was getting pretty competitive - snarly knitters after a fleece is a dangerous thing.)
The woman I've bought a shetland/something fleece from for 3 years no longer had that sheep. I did not ask for details, but my heart broke a little. She has converted her flock to Wennsleydales and was selling the lamby fleece in 1lb bags for $7. Now, every Wennsleydale I've ever spun has been kind of itchy and not my favorite by a long shot, but this stuff is like shiny floof. What the heck, I'll try a pound. And ONLY a pound, because - seasoned shopper that I am - I arrived with $7 in my pocket and no checkbook. Doh! I would have come home with lots more if Visa didn't make it so expensive for small vendors to take the cards!
Saturday was great fun - I met up with my friend Melissa from work, who learned to spindle spin last week over a lunch hour. She picked it right up! So we got her all set up with a beautiful Mielke Emily out of tulipwood, and she got some hand painted rovings. So much fun to see it all begin! She had her three little boys along (who *I* thought were perfectly behaved) and the oldest and I bonded over our love for alpaca.
Soon after they took off to see the critters, I started running into more friends all over the place. I spent the rest of the day with spinning friends Celeste and Rebecca, who have the same acquisition philosophy I do: "I want more!" I do love the fiber, but it's so much fun to hang out among crowds of people who "get" you. I talked about fiber and wheels with people for hours and hours and it was wonderful!
Sunday I took a class on spinning for lace. The location for this class was pretty bad - we were right in one of the market buildings so it was noisy and there were lots of distractions. Not a good place for trying to learn something new. Since much of what I spin is lace weight already, I planned to learn how to spin cashmere, which has eluded me, and try to get some more consistency. I got some cashmere on the bobbin, so I'm feeling confident enough to try some more. I also spun cotton for the first (and probably the last) time. We also had samples of yak, kid mohair, and flax(which I didn't try because I'm allergic to it). I liked spinning the mohair, but it kept breaking on me when I was pulling it off the bobbin. Same with the yak. I have spun piles of merino and silk before, but while I was there I wasn't spinning for a project, I was playing with how much twist to put in, monkeying around with my tension and take up, and I was able to see a real difference in what I made.
Today at work my fingers were twitching. Hard to get back to the real world!
