July 2011 – Page 3 – Fiber Musings

Lark and Jay

On 20 Jul, 2011

It didn’t make sense to pay for postage on a replacement shaft alone, so I bought another spindle from Wanda. :)

I bought a convertible Meadowlark, aka Lark. When converted, it becomes a Jay. The photo on the left is the Jay conversion with a Bolivian Rosewood shaft. The crossbeams are made of Pistachio.

Jenkins provided a picture of the difference between a Jay and a Lark. Really, it’s a line up of all of their Turkish Spindles.

With the addition of the Lark/Jay, I now have one each of the Turkish spindles they make. Yup. I’m a sucker for these little cuties.

Photo on the right is the Lark with the Jay shaft next to it. And in case you are curious, the Lark comes in at 18g. It should spin laceweight yarn beautifully.

Hmm. I may have to take a bit of time off from knitting the shawl to playing with my new toy. I’m curious what difference the different shafts will make to the feel of the spindles.

Yeah. I’ll call it research. It’s not playing if I’m doing research, right?

In the meantime, I’m moving right along on the shawl. I’ll post a picture of the color change tomorrow.

I had good intentions of spinning a little bit each day of the tour on my little Aegean spindle. Unfortunately, the equipment met with catastrophic failure within the first couple days. Completely due to my own stupidity. But it also meant that it could not be repaired, and replacement was going to have to wait until I returned home from my vacation.

No matter. I was too distracted to spin more than a token amount to say I did it. Not a huge loss from a progress perspective.

As soon as I returned home, I emailed Wanda and requested a replacement.

Here’s a picture of the broken shaft (center) and the new replacement (left), and my pitiful Tour de Fleece progress.

While I have spun a little bit on my little Turkish Delight upon return, there’s not much to blog about. I also haven’t spun for a week because I’ve been knitting away on the Circle of Life Shawl. So, I officially bow out of the Tour. No surprise here.

Incidentally, I queries several people and search high and low for fiber that I could spin in the Aegean that wouldn’t become a wet soggy felted mess in the heat and humidity. The fiber I chose was a merino/bamboo blend from New Hue Handspun. It was/is lovely fiber to spin.

Carpetbagger

By Ann

On 18 Jul, 2011

In General

Following my progress on the Circle of Life Shawl right now is about exciting as watching paint dry. Let me distract you with a few Turkey posts.

While in Turkey, I became a carpetbagger. This tote made good recycling use of an old kilim rug. I adore it. It’s a generous tote bag, capable of holding a long weekend’s worth of clothing, electronics and all my fiber projects for the trip. While cavernous, it doesn’t hold a candle to Mary Poppin’s carpet bag.

Random thoughts of a fiber enthusiast - mostly fiber related, sometimes coherent

Month: July 2011 Page 3 of 4

Lark and Jay

Tour de What?

Carpetbagger