Hello. My name is Claire - and I like to spin.

Oh Joy! I am in for two more 3-day weekends in a row! Hurrah! Three more days to lie idly around the house, gathering dust on my more stationary surfaces, celebrating the brat couch potato that is me!  I’m going to level with you – I have a secret that I don’t just share with just any old people, but as you bothered to come read my blog I’m going to come clean on this issue; I fancy fiber. Ok, I know you are shocked, and I can understand that. People don’t expect to scratch my surface and find someone suffering from fiberphilia.

I no longer remember how I got into fiber, it started so long ago. I started with wools, not the cheap stuff, but good wool - straight off the sheep - a mixed breed ewe named Misty. I still have a exquisite stores of her extraordinary russet fleece. Misty’s fleece satisfied me for a long time but then I entered my experimental stage. I gave flax a spin; then I dabbled in silk. Then eschewing plant for animals I went in for alpaca, llama and the curlicue hair of the cashmere goat. When that wasn’t enough I had to go for the small, the helpless – yes, I went for angora rabbit hair – plucked straight from the bunny’s tender little body.

*shudders with delight* I am not proud to admit, I even dabbled in the über exotic; giving in to cravings for qiviut (ki-vee-ute) the undercoat of Muskoxen. Oh Joy! I am in for two more 3-day weekends in a row! Hurrah! Three more days to lie idly around the house, gathering dust on my more stationary surfaces, celebrating the brat couch potato that is me!  Yes, soon I was in deep – hidden around my home are boxes and boxes of fiber from every corner of the earth. But you know, a good fetish always comes with paraphanalia and I’ve got my share. I started off simple – becoming adept at the use of the drop spindle.&nbsp Then, hankering for something more complex I got a double-treadle Schacht spinning wheel; there was no turning back.
When spinning my own yarn was not enough I took up weaving. I bought myself a loom; a Schacht baby woof. I was tabby weaving with the best of them. 

Enough of my bragging about my little – peccadilloes. This past weekend, being in full hermit mode and had a hankering to get into the fiber.I went into my vast store and pulled out some lovely white Angora and some wool roving.

The Angora was plucked several years ago from a friend’s bunny that went by the name of Pinky – the bunny that is. The wool roving is lovely, brushed, un-spun sheep’s wool. I no longer remember where I got the roving, but it is soft and highly spin-able, with marvelously long, soft fibers.  I spun for hours, and the end product is two skeins of textured mid-weight yarn; the wool is off-white, and the Angora is bright white; really pretty stuff. I plied the yarns together. The angora wool will give the final product the soft halo of fuzzy hair. But that is later; first there I must decide between finishing this project up with some crochet or knitting. Perhaps I’ll tell you about the joys of those sinful pursuits at a later date. You know - if I'm looking for a cheap thrill. All About the Addiction