Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time. Thomas Merton

Monday, January 30, 2012

Silky Stuff

Now that I've finished up other spinning and wool processing projects for some folks, I have this lovely silk stuff to spin up.




This silky red and yellow fuzz balls are blends of merino wool, tussah silk, and camel down that I bought at the Roc Day celebration held at Little Barn, a fiber shop here in Madison County. The custom batts are dyed and blended by Patty White, one of the owners of the shop. The quantities are very limited. I had quite a time making up my mind which colors to get. I almost waited too late! Many of the other fiber fanatics in attendance had just about depleted the supply by the time I broke down and decided to buy fiber that day.

After experimenting with them a bit, I've decided to spin each in thin singles and ply the two colors together. I spindle spun a small sample at the gathering the day I got the fiber, plying the two colors after a spinning friend suggested it. I think I like it.






The other lovely mass of fiber fun is carded tussah silk that Patty also dyes for the shop. I got this several months ago. The bags were full of such beautiful, multi-colored stuff that choosing was difficult that day, too. I ended up buying six bags. That's six ounces. It doesn't sound like much, but it will go a long way. I will probably spin a lace weight, two-ply yarn with it as well. It doesn't look great in the photo because I just opened a few bags and flopped them out on the chair seat to photograph before I lost the light (this iPhone is not the one with the fancy camera, so I have to take my chances). They've been compressed in those bags for quite some time now. Once liberated and shaken out a bit, they are truly lovely to look at, delightful to...spin.



I hope I remember to photograph the end results when I get them done. . . if I'm not too old and feeble to use a computer by then.

8 comments:

  1. OMG! Sitting here drooling over the fluff (so to speak). What beautiful batts. What will you do with the finished yarn?

    ReplyDelete
  2. That last picture is a dandy ...

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love all the colors. It would be difficult to choose!

    ReplyDelete
  4. That tussa silk looks good enough to eat.

    Good job on the tangerine and yellow colors plied. Socks?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Those colors look so pretty and soft, I would have to hug them for a while before deciding what to make. Definitely take pictures along the way, I'm sure they will be great as always. And it will be fun keeping up with your project too.

    I'm starting a wall hanging...and keeping up with a sick cat, hope she gets over this soon. Yuck!
    Smile today. :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Those colors look lovely plyed together.

    ReplyDelete