sweetgeorgia

Louboutin vs. Green

Have you ever met something so beautiful, it a) made your heart stop, b) make you feel sick and lightheaded, c) gasp audibly, d) all of the above? I’ve felt it… with a pair of shoes, nonetheless.

A few days ago, I saw (and, unfortunately for me, tried on) _the_ most beautiful pair of Christian Louboutin shoes — they made me want to lie down and cry, they were so gorgeous. Strappy, sandal-y and classic, I could wear them everyday, forever. More than once that day, it crossed my mind that I could take all the pennies I’d been saving for my drum carder and blow it all on this one beautiful moment with _the shoes_.

However, in an attempt to curb potentially bad shopping activity, I called up [Paula](http://www.patgreencarders.com/) this morning and ordered my drum carder. That’s right, there’s a drum carder out in Chilliwack with my name on it and I’m going to pick it up this weekend…

Because fashion is fleeting and drum carders are forever, right? _Right?_

Spinning New Fibres

What is it about new fibres that is intimidating? I bought little bags of ingeo, firestar, bamboo and soy silk last year on Salt Spring Island — did I spin it? Nope, not really. I dyed up a bunch of soy silk and started spinning it, but didn’t really like the feel… until…

Last Wednesday, through the Greater Vancouver Weavers and Spinners Guild, I attended the “Spinning New Fibres” workshop led by Kim McKenna (who designed the [Salt Spring Island colourways](http://www.treenwaysilks.com/ssi_series.html) for Treenway Silks). From 8:30 am to 4:00 pm, we spun everything from Viscose Rayon, Tencel and Bamboo to Ingeo, Soy Silk and Silk Latte. Most of the day was spent spinning samples of white/cream coloured fibres, making blends with merino and comparing samples. By the end of the day, we started playing with the coloured fibres in our goody bags and were mixing different coloured merino wools with various kinds of Firestar, Flash and Angelina. My blends were all made with my little Forsyth mini-combs and spun, worsted, directly from the comb.

Each of these “new” fibres has some interesting or beneficial feature. Although 100% handspun “Blending Nylon” or 100% “Fake Cashmere” might not be appealing, blending a bit of it with wool makes the final yarn stronger. Soy Silk on it’s own isn’t really fun to spin, but blending it up with wool makes it easier to spin and produces a loftier yarn. Even adding a bit of Viscose to a blend gives the yarn a slight glittery, shimmery look.

One interesting point though — for the same weight of fibre, natural silk is still less expensive than Silk Latte, Ingeo and Bamboo.

And speaking of new fibres, my Gotland fleece arrived already! I washed a little lock of it last night with some Dawn and hot water and it’s super clean and shiny. The fleece isn’t really smelly at all — I checked several times! _Yum._

_Edited to add: I was so excited about uploading these photos that I forgot to mention my favourite blends! One of my favourites was Ingeo — it seemed to give loft and structure. Good for blending with wimpy fibres (like adding crispness to alpaca). I liked the merino/Silk Latte blend — smooth, drapey, shiny — but expensive compared to real silk. And my absolute favourite — the deep chocolate coloured merino plus auburn alpaca plus copper flash. Yummy like dessert!_

Getting raw.

Treenway Silk has their [2006 fleeces](http://www.treenwaysilks.com/fleeces.html) listed now and I just bought one. This will be my very first raw fleece — it’s 2.3 kg Gotland ewe fleece that is “cream with light grey tones”. What better [marketing](http://www.sheepmagazine.com/issues/09_10_05.html#article3) for this fleece than to have it featured in the “Lord of the Rings”? Shall I spin and weave this into a cape for myself? Hmm, the possibilities…

_Edited to add: Wow. Here is a [way better link](http://www.stansborough.co.nz/sb/lotr.cfm) to the use of Gotland fleece in the costuming for Lord of the Rings._

A Sheep of One’s Own

Yep. That’s right. Sweetgeorgia’s got a sheep!

Last night was our annual little gift exchange dinner among friends — and my friends got together and adopted a sheep for me! They rock. Check it out:

I remember mentioning the “adopt-a-sheep” thing last year and the idea must have stuck! This sheep will be from Owens Farm in New Hampshire. The farm sends letters throughout the year with photos to let you know how life is progressing. Since I’m allowed to visit my little sheep every couple months, Michelle suggested we fly down to visit the sheep in July as part of the celebration of my big 3-0. Shiny!

And they bought me this little sheep ornament at the Circle Craft Christmas Market too — but rather than hanging it on the tree, I’m going to use it to decorate my wheel year-round!

Not quite ready for their closeups

The Manly Sweater (after a year of working on it, off and on) is done! But it’s still drying. I am gifting it to the DH for our anniversary, but again, _it’s still drying_. It was easy to knit, but I think the armholes are too small…

Look what else is drying… dyed Soy Silk! This stuff is weird. It looks like silk and acts like silk, but is kind of “crunchy” like cotton. I’m looking forward to seeing how it will spin!

And here’s more fibre that’s drying…

That’s Border Leicester roving that I bought in Salt Spring this summer. It’s soft, but not _soft like merino!_ soft. So I’m making…

… a Jayne Cobb hat! If you’ve seen Joss Whedon’s Firefly, you’ll know this is the hat that Jayne receives in the mail, handknit by his mom. I’m going to card (blending the red and yellow to make orange!) and spin up the yarn this weekend and knit it up next weekend when my friends and I get together for a Firefly marathon. All this is prep for the Serenity movie that comes out on September 30. If you want to make one too, this lovely gal has [written a pattern for it here...](http://dryope.typepad.com/superfly/jayne_cobb_hat/index.html)