On the topic of 2 great tastes that go great together? Silk and wool!
Yarn or Death went to SAFF and had a great time. I'm jealous, because I miss going to things like the NH Sheep and Wool Festival. Raising sheep and other woolly things this far south seems, well, kind of mean to me as it's so hot. But anyway . . .
Before she was leaving she asked if I ever spun with non-animal fibers. I explained my spinning is really good enough for me to have ventured into cotton, hemp, stuff like that. But I'm not as dense as I look, so I said "if you see anything at SAFF that you really like, feel free to buy it and I'll spin it for you - unless you want to do it yourself." YoD isn't ready to start spinning, but I now have 8oz. each of silk/merino blend in summer sky blue (2 oz. of which I spun last night while watching the Colts and Titans) and some chocolate brown alpaca.
Before (15 years ago - that's scary, when did I get so old?) I'd worked with silk, but it was in brick form, and I got very frustrated and decided I hated silk.
I was wrong.
I'll post pictures of that silk/merino tonight. Maybe I can haul the wheel out onto the porch before the light goes away.
The pre-drafting is different than straight wool - the silk gets really smooshed down sort of locked together, so after pulling the roving into quarters, I then find it works best to fluff it out from the side, turn it 90 degrees and fluff it again. The roving goes from hard, squeaky and dense (do you know what I mean about silk fibers being squeaky?) to soft and cloudy and suddenly very shiny.
So, what's worse that suddenly discovering your taste for something wickedly expensive like silk and wool roving? Finding someone else insane enough to fund your problem. Even YoD saw the danger here.
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