Bunnies! (and other fibery related stuff)

Yesterday was probably the closest I'll ever be to having an angora bunny. We went to the Southwest Fiber Festival in Amado, AZ yesterday and had a fun day of fibery goodness. By the time we left the festival, the woman selling the angora bunnies knew me well :). I almost asked to hold one, but settled for lots of petting while begging Laurie to let me take one home with us. She said no. Even so, I came home with the closest thing, 2 bags of angora, one 2.6 oz of white and one 1.6 oz of black and white. And, they were going to harvest one of the bunnies today and the bunny lady is going to send me what they pluck in the mail. That'll be about 2/3 an ounce. I can't even begin to tell you how soft this angora is. It's really like petting and snuggling with a bunny - I can't wait to spin it!

Here is one of the angora bunnies they were selling, but not the one I'm getting the fiber from. Laurie texted me this photo while I was in class to tease me!

My 1.6 oz of black and white angora, the white angora wasn't much to look at, just a pile of soft white fluff. I might need to open the bag up and touch it just one more time...

4 oz of merino/silk in the colorway "Laguna Agate"

2 new spindles

The very first thing that I did at the festival was take a class. We spent the night nearby in Green Valley, so we didn't have to make the drive really early in the morning to get me to the class. The class was called "The Joy of Spindle Spinning". It was a mixed class of newbies and more experienced spinners. It was fun and I learned how to spin cotton! I think my recent practice on camel down and yak really helped. The class materials included a bead spindle (the one in the bottom of the picture) and some pima cotton, corridale wool and some merino, all in white so I didn't photograph all of them. You can see in the picture some of the spun cotton on the spindle. The second spindle in the picture is a coin tahkli spindle. I'm kind of thinking I might try to spin the angora on it. It spins very fast and it was a good price so I got it. (If you are wondering what the white thing in the pic is, we were spinning these supported spindles using a little shell as our spinning bowl.)

After the class, we wandered around the festival, it was relatively small but there was a lot to look at. I drooled over some KCL Woods spindles, one of them was made of mango wood, which was really cool. I petted the bunnies several times. After making it through the circle of booths, we attempted to find something to eat. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful. Even though there was a restaurant that was supposed to be selling food, they were turning people away, saying that they only had one chef. If there had been food we would have stayed a bit longer. (Apparently, Laurie overheard a guild woman (the Tucson spinners and weaving guild put this festival on) saying angrily that the restaurant had promised to provide food and was not too happy that they were turning people away. I guess they had the no food problem last year too, and the solution was supposed to be provided by the restaurant.) So, we made one more pass, bought a gift for our friend Mandy who couldn't come with us and got some very cool felted placemats for our table and headed home. It was a very fun day and we made it home in time for church, even though we were really exhausted.

Our hedgehogs are to be turned in next Saturday, so I really need to get cracking on making those flowers and felting Woolflower. I'm off to do some knitting!

A Nebraska weekend

As I mentioned in a previous post, Laurie and I were in Nebraska last weekend for one of her cousin's wedding reception. We had a lot of fun. Rachel and Andy, Laurie's cousin and cousin-in-law (?) took Friday off work so that we could go out and see a little bit of Nebraska. We went to the pioneer village in Mindon, NE. We got there a little late in the day but we saw a lot of cool things. They had a whole spinning section and a home furnishing display that featured our newly reupholstered couch and matching chair in the "1930's" display of living room furniture. That was very cool. We saw old cars, a sod house, and a whole building worth of antique appliances. The whole village was pretty much empty and it was funny because inside the buildings were freezing cold and that made outside seem much warmer that it was - although the sun did come out in the afternoon. After the pioneer village, we drove into Kearny, where Rachel went to college for a few years and got the whole tour. We ate at a brewery in Kearny and then headed home. (By home, I mean we were staying with Rachel's sister and brother-in-law, Sara and Scott, in their lovely home. It was the most accessible of all the relative's houses. They set me up in a twin bed on the first floor and it was just perfect and really thoughtful of them to do that.) The wedding reception was Saturday and we drove with the bride and groom (Sara and Scott) to the restaurant. It was a big group and the food was excellent. Andy and I got the best dish, the three cheese tortellini. I got pretty tired by the end of the reception and went to go lay down in Rachel and Andy's car for awhile. We had steak and some genuine Alaskan salmon for dinner that night and Laurie and Rachel made the rainbow cake for dessert. The cake was perfect - Laurie even managed to get the colors all lined up on the top and bottom layers. All the cousins stayed up late playing the game catchphrase, which I had never played before and had a lot of fun! Sunday, more relatives came over to Sara and Scott's for a less formal get together and we all just kind of hung out as a family. Sunday night we all divvied up the leftovers and ate them all! We spent Sunday night in a hotel near the airport and took the shuttle in for an early morning flight. The whole trip was just so much fun. It was so good to see Rachel and Andy - I absolutely love having them as company and hopefully, they'll be able to come visit us sometime in February. So here are all the weekend pictures!

Out front of the pioneer village are me, Andy and Rachel.

Andy explores the convenient recipe card drawer on one of the first microwave ovens.

The whole reception group.

Me, Laurie and Nancy (Laurie's mom) with the bride, Sara.

Rachel and Andy amid the baking.

The cake (and some silliness)!

Cut rainbow cake.

The chefs with their creation.

On a side note, yesterday, my new russian support spindles arrived in the mail. They are beautiful and the test spinning on them has been really great. I'm spinning some camel down on one of them right now. They made me wish that I had begun my support spindle spinning with them, but who knows, it might be my experience and familiarity with support spindles now that makes using them so delightful! They are Bolivian Rosewood, one is 12"and one is 14" and there is a matching spinning bowl.

More wool washing

I did some more wool washing today. It was actually the same wool I had washed yesterday, but I had stacked them too deep so not everything got washed the first time. First I laid out the locks on the netting and safety pinned them closed.

A shot of them soaking in the castille soap bath in the sink. I did two soap baths and two water only baths, then squeezed them all out and laid them on the sweater drying rack in the bedroom where the fan was going full speed.

After they dried (and I took a nap), I used my flat hand carders to open up the locks a little bit before spinning. I did both ends and put them in a nice little fiber pile that is coming with me this weekend to do a test spin with it. I wasn't totally pleased with how they washed - they still feel a bit greasy to me. I might try just straight dawn instead of the castille soap next time. Now it's off to nap until Laurie gets home and we go to the airport.

Oh! - whilst writing this post, our brand newly reupholstered furniture arrived! It all looks amazing! I'll have to post pictures when I get back!

A delightful new addition

Again, I'm writing on the eve of an out of town trip. Tomorrow, Laurie and I head for Nebraska for a wedding reception of a cousin. I'm really looking forward to this trip. Rachel and Andy are taking time off work to show us around and possibly go to a pioneer museum on Friday and I really love spending time with them. We all hit it off really well a year ago, camping and I am looking forward to this visit!

In other exciting news, we purchased a new addition for the bedroom tonight on craigslist. It's a secretary that will be serving as my bedside cabinet/desk/drawers. We've been thinking for awhile about what we wanted to put there and nothing really looked good. We went to Ikea on Monday and looked around, a little while ago we had seen that they had pretty nice sized wardrobes in their kid's section but when we checked this time, the choices were pretty slim. I was really bummed, so I went a-looking on craigslist and low and behold, a beautiful secretary in just the right style popped up. We went and looked at it last night and a friend with a truck brought it home tonight. I'm loving it! It's not a huge and menacing piece of furniture, like a lot of armoire/wardrobes that are popular right now. No, we cannot fit our 46" tv in it. (Not that we have one...) But it is perfect, the top cabinet has a little light and the glass doors lock with a skeleton key. The key also opens the desk, which has all sorts of little nooks. And the key locks the dresser drawers! I love the drawer pulls on the drawers, too. I've always dreamed about having a lockable cabinet like this (since oh maybe childhood) and I'm very happy. So here are the pictures:

My spinning is going well, I'm finally mastering the "long draw" technique that I've been practicing. This yarn isn't going to be particularly even but I am enjoying spinning it. I have 2 more russian spindles coming in the mail soon. I have been hoping that they will come before we leave tomorrow but I'm not sure if they will. I got some camel down to try them out on (more long draw practice). I'm almost to the plying part of spinning the silk for the last expressions in spinning gathering, I'll be excited to see it finished. Today, I also did some wool washing of the fleece. I didn't wash much (and I hope it will dry so I can take it with me tomorrow) but I'm looking forward to trying to spin it! I didn't realize just how dirty that wool was. Anyways, tonight's a busy night - still have packing and cleaning to do - so I better get back to that :).

Little bit of spinning

A week ago, the last friday of September, we had another expressions in spinning group. This time the choice of inspiration was music. The song that got picked was "Dancing Queen" by Abba. After liking the alpaca so much, I was looking for the appropriate color for my yarn and ended up getting some yak and not alpaca. I also got some sari silk to card together with the yak. Trying to spin the yak on my lightest suspended spindle caused much frustration and loss of good fiber and general unhappiness. Yak is a very short fiber, like cashmere and angora, and I wasn't able to get enough twist in fast enough to keep it from breaking every time I tried to have it bear the spindle's weight. A quick search on Ravelry revealed that if I wanted to spin the yak without dropping my spindle every 5 seconds, I needed a different sort of spindle - a supported spindle. A supported spindle spins in a little bowl or hard surface and the fiber never has to bear it's weight. So I got a new spindle in the mail last friday and I've been test driving it with some merino out of Laurie's stash. I am not over the moon about it's color but it's working well for practice. Not only am I learning the ropes of a new spindle, I'm trying to learn a new drafting technique - long draw. From what I've read, it's the best way to spin really short fibers. It's been fun weekend, practicing these new things. I'm still a little scared to actually try spinning the yak right now, so more practice is in order. From some work I did for my mom, she is being very generous and two new russian support spindles are being made for me. I love spinning lace weight yarn and these support spindles are the best way to do that :). The pictures are of the support spindle that came last friday and the little bit of usable yarn that came of my disastrous attempt and spinning the yak on my suspended spindle, as well as a picture of the yak fiber I have. It's so soft, I'm hoping I will have enough to make a small shawl.