This past weekend I attended the Southeast Animal Fiber Fair for the first time, and came back with a lot of new fiber to spin. I arrived with my family Friday afternoon and started with a bit of shopping – my main goal was to find fiber as many sheep breeds as I could that I hadn’t tried spinning yet. The photo at the top shows what I bought, all in about 2 oz quantities. Clockwise from top left: Teeswater roving, Gotland roving, Gotland combed top, Polwarth combed top, Romney lambswool roving, Blue-faced Leicester combed top, and Targhee combed top. So far I’ve only spun a bit of the Gotland roving – I had a hard time deciding what to try first.
On Sunday morning I took a traditional wool prep class and got a few more goodies:
These are all washed locks, about 1/2 oz each. The class covered the characteristics of different breeds, how to choose a fleece and wash it, and how to card using hand cards and a drum carder. I brought some hand cards I bought for around $5 at The Scrap Exchange, a local reuse shop, and it turns out they’re were a pretty good bargain. They’re in good shape and good medium all-purpose cards. I hope I can find as good a deal on some wool combs!
In a departure from my usual obsessions, I also bought some dyed fiber to play with. I have been given a 1970s-era Ashford spinning wheel I’m trying to fix up (more on that later) and I spied this while picking up a replacement bobbin for it. It’s hard to see all the colors since they’re so dark, but I’m looking forward to spinning them up.
We also visited the animal barn on Saturday afternoon with my 8-year-old son, who after rolling his eyes at me talking about wool all the time, concluded that sheep are pretty cool after all. In fact, by the end we had decided that on our hypothetical fiber farm, we would have Jacob, Shetland and Icelandic sheep, Pygora goats (my husband’s favorite), and Angora rabbits (for my son).
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