sweetgeorgia

The Good Girl

I went to Fibre Fest and didn’t buy anything.

Well actually, I did. I bought Michelle and Jo each a “Topknot” from Aurelia Wool & Weaving to see if it would push them over the edge and get them spinning. Heh. They both attended the drop spindle demo and then we spent much of the afternoon going from booth to booth to test the different spindles. The girls finally settled on a couple spindles made by Dave Smith/Shari Hamilton (similar to the one I bought in November at the Langley event). Michelle’s spindle is made from Jatoba. Sounds cool to me.

Over the five and a half hours that we spent shopping, I was such a good girl and didn’t buy anything. But Michelle bought me a ball of Bamboo yarn from Jane Stafford’s booth. Beautiful stuff. Laura Fry’s Weaving Studio was also offering a number of handpainted skeins of Bamboo yarn and I saw it woven up — lovely, soft and drapey fabric. And I heard it doesn’t pill!

I didn’t buy anything because, well, I have lots of stuff to play with already. So, on Sunday, I spent some quality time with my carder and some bombyx silk/merino top that I dyed a couple months ago. I’m in love with the carded batts at The Silkworker, so I decided to take my crumpled looking top and fluff it up with the drum carder.

I took one batt, stripped it vertically a couple times and spun it up from end to end. Andean plied the whole thing and washed the yarn. By evening, it was dry enough to knit up. This is going to be yet another Flower Basket Shawl (Evelyn Clark, Interweave Knits Fall 2004). I love how it feels kind of powdery and crunchy all at the same time — like fresh snow.

Life before drum carder.

But lest you think it was just the shoes that pushed me over the edge and got me drum carder crazy, here’s what really made me crazy:

I blended some hand dyed Merino with plain white French Angora and a bit of hand dyed Angelina (might be Blue Moon Spinnery?) by hand using some coarse Ashford hand cards. It really wasn’t much fun — do I have too much merino? too much angora? Is it even? This would be so much easier with a drum carder?

The Angora guard hairs really pop out and give it a spiky look. I don’t mind — I think it looks kind of interesting, but it may not be so interesting if you want to knit it and wear it around your sensitive neck.

The skein was washed, whacked (for some fulling) and all chopped up into 5-yard samples. And the samples, well, they are travelling the world now in the KR Handspun Yarn Swap.

Junky Love

How about some Thursday morning yum? Here you go:

This is some of the thrums, scraps, bits & bobs, and leftovers that I’ve collected for nearly a year. Every time I get a bit of junky leftover fibre that I don’t want to try to incorporate into my spinning, I set it aside in a little strawberry container. The container was getting pretty full, so last week when our class drum carder was available, I carded the whole shebang into this little batt. I should do this more often.

Where Carders Come From

Yesterday morning, we took our little mini-road trip to Chilliwack, stopping only for coffee and doughnuts at Tim’s (because that’s what Canadians do on road trips). The drive was easy and we enjoyed the amazing sunny weather that is unusual for Vancouver in February.

Patrick and Paula win the prize for most adorable couple, ever. Paula showed us parts of her massive garden (raised beds for asparagus) and even gave us a couple homegrown apples. They helped unpack my new drum carder, plug it in and show us how to use, maintain and repair it. Since we came to pick up the carder, they included a few additional toys (I mean, tools) — a flicker and a double-sided “side flicker”. Patrick was happy to show us the other equipment that they are working on, including the Supercard and Triple Pickers — Richard was so impressed with the workmanship that he even said on the drive home that my next drum carder (whenever that might be) can be a Supercard — remember, you are all witnesses now!

So this is what I got, a Patrick Green 3-speed Powered Fancicard:

And here are the bits and pieces that accompanied the carder:

Of course, I started playing with it as soon as we got it home — I blended some green Border Leicester and blue Coopworth into…

So. Much. Fun.