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which_chickAs a dabbler with fiber, I acquired quite the stash (plus awesome drum carder!!) over the weekend from friend A (who lives in the greater Philly area). She is in the process of clearing out her mother's house, winnowing down the remains of a life, etc. The fiber stash... it's not friend A's primary crafting sport and space is limited. So, I got the invite for a visit and a loot-the-stash (with permission and encouragement) event.
As I only had the Honda Fit, I did not take away the loom-with-bench. I don't weave and my house is tiny and while I want to think of myself as the sort of person who could walk away with a loom and wind up being a weaver, I am not actually that person and these days I have the wisdom to admit to myself and others that I am not that person. Hard pass. :) I did walk away with three orchids, a very large pot of amaryllis, three large storage tubs of fiber (mostly wool) and a lovely Fricke drum carder (with all accessories) that is fully functional and sturdy enough to survive any and all apocalyptic events that may ensue in the murky and unknowable future.
The fiber acquisitions are all neatly tagged, bagged, and ready-to-spin except for the things that had already been spun and were stored as hanks (singles or two-ply) ready to Do Things With. Most of the dates on the tags are in the mid-to-late 1990's, so these fibers are from a spinner (and weaver) recently dead but also from sheep long dead. The plied yarn was spun by a woman I did not know, for projects that I will never know, projects now stillborn with her death and likely so for rather years before her death (judging by the dates on the tags). That's all kind of sad, and I'm a little melancholy about it.
There are some things I do know, from the orderly storage situation. Like, I'm... working with (for example) Brown Romney 2-ply, Deer Meadow Farm, Cushing, ME, 1997. There's a lot of it, nicely bouncy, the sort of thing I might have spun for myself. It looks a lot like my 2-ply, tbh. We are spinnners of a skill level, anyway. The brown Romney is a great color and hand. It's quite nice and definitely in line with the sort of thing I'd buy for myself. Whatever it was once intended to be, it is now going to be a saddle pad for my horse. I've wanted a custom knitted-then-fulled wool one for a while and I am going to make me one. Wool is great. It breathes. It's cushy and gentle. It's washable. Knitted, fulled wool is a great fabric and that is what I am going to do here with the brown Romney from Deer Meadow Farm. Not sure how that's going to go, but also I am willing to experiment a little and see where that takes me.
Watch this space for, y'know, progress reports.
In other news, I have read some books. Perhaps you might like to read some books, too.
The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard. Read it straight through. At once. It was a lot of fun for me. Will read more by this author, who clearly knows the sort of thing I like, but books-that-cost-money are a rationed item, so it may be a while.
The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson. Also very much my style of thing and ended strongly. Ooof. I want to pick up the next, but books-that-cost-money are rationed, so...
Anyway, I quite liked those two books. (I also read a metric shit-ton of Kindle Unlimited and honest to dog if I come up with things there that punch above their weight class, I will 100% share them with you. But mostly it's dreck. I admit that it's dreck. I'm OK that it's dreck. It's fairly predictable genre dreck and it does what it says on the tin, sometimes even competently, but... it's on the whole dreck that I could read twice with a week's time between efforts and only realize two hundred pages in that I'd read the book before.)
As I only had the Honda Fit, I did not take away the loom-with-bench. I don't weave and my house is tiny and while I want to think of myself as the sort of person who could walk away with a loom and wind up being a weaver, I am not actually that person and these days I have the wisdom to admit to myself and others that I am not that person. Hard pass. :) I did walk away with three orchids, a very large pot of amaryllis, three large storage tubs of fiber (mostly wool) and a lovely Fricke drum carder (with all accessories) that is fully functional and sturdy enough to survive any and all apocalyptic events that may ensue in the murky and unknowable future.
The fiber acquisitions are all neatly tagged, bagged, and ready-to-spin except for the things that had already been spun and were stored as hanks (singles or two-ply) ready to Do Things With. Most of the dates on the tags are in the mid-to-late 1990's, so these fibers are from a spinner (and weaver) recently dead but also from sheep long dead. The plied yarn was spun by a woman I did not know, for projects that I will never know, projects now stillborn with her death and likely so for rather years before her death (judging by the dates on the tags). That's all kind of sad, and I'm a little melancholy about it.
There are some things I do know, from the orderly storage situation. Like, I'm... working with (for example) Brown Romney 2-ply, Deer Meadow Farm, Cushing, ME, 1997. There's a lot of it, nicely bouncy, the sort of thing I might have spun for myself. It looks a lot like my 2-ply, tbh. We are spinnners of a skill level, anyway. The brown Romney is a great color and hand. It's quite nice and definitely in line with the sort of thing I'd buy for myself. Whatever it was once intended to be, it is now going to be a saddle pad for my horse. I've wanted a custom knitted-then-fulled wool one for a while and I am going to make me one. Wool is great. It breathes. It's cushy and gentle. It's washable. Knitted, fulled wool is a great fabric and that is what I am going to do here with the brown Romney from Deer Meadow Farm. Not sure how that's going to go, but also I am willing to experiment a little and see where that takes me.
Watch this space for, y'know, progress reports.
In other news, I have read some books. Perhaps you might like to read some books, too.
The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard. Read it straight through. At once. It was a lot of fun for me. Will read more by this author, who clearly knows the sort of thing I like, but books-that-cost-money are a rationed item, so it may be a while.
The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson. Also very much my style of thing and ended strongly. Ooof. I want to pick up the next, but books-that-cost-money are rationed, so...
Anyway, I quite liked those two books. (I also read a metric shit-ton of Kindle Unlimited and honest to dog if I come up with things there that punch above their weight class, I will 100% share them with you. But mostly it's dreck. I admit that it's dreck. I'm OK that it's dreck. It's fairly predictable genre dreck and it does what it says on the tin, sometimes even competently, but... it's on the whole dreck that I could read twice with a week's time between efforts and only realize two hundred pages in that I'd read the book before.)
