I think there will be a few people visiting here that I met at the Handspun-Handwoven show in Yellow Springs today. I will be posting pictures of spindles and niddy-noddy-nostepinnes shortly and I’ll link to their auctions on eBay. That’ll probably be on Monday the 22nd.

In the mean time, I realized there is no way to contact me up here, so here’s an e-mail address:

jessica (at) seedpodbooksandart (dot) com

(You can figure that out–I’m avoiding the evil spam-bots.)

I had a fun time. Those of you who bought spindles, e-mail me with updates on your spinning adventures!!

This day I said I wanted to do an entry with a bunny and a pile of fluff, then some pictures of that fluff being spun. I plucked my bunny and took pictures all the while. I even started to spin the fluff off of my bunny, but the software for downloading photos is on Barry’s computer. That means that he has to be home so that I can download pictures on his computer and send them to this computer. Anyway, I got SOME of the pictures I wanted on this computer:

Here’s me plucking Sally. I just grab some wool and pull. Comes out just like that. It takes me forever. I used to just sit on the couch with her on my lap, but a couple of my maternity shirts have holes chewed in the belly!! It is much easier on this table that Barry built!

So, here’s all the fluff. It is like a big cloud. Can you tell how soft it feels from the picture?

And now I’m starting to spin it. This is my first attempt spinning angora on my spinning wheel. It is much harder than sheep’s wool or alpaca. It has to be spun thin with a lot of twist in it to keep it from breaking and it is so slippery it takes some fancy finger work. It’s much easier for me to do it on a drop spindle, but that is a lot slower. I think I’m getting the hang of it though.

Anyway Mom, here are the pictures. They were never here, so that’s why you couldn’t find them.

Sally.

She is a French Angora from Somerhill Farm. I plucked her this week, and now that Barry (aka. The Man Who Can do ANYTHING) has made it easy for me to put pictures in my entries I’m going to show whoever looks at this site (anyone?) a full fluff bunny, defluffed, and a pile of fluff that I will magically turn into yarn. That is one thing I CAN do. Barry does everything else.

A year ago I walked through the tents on the grounds of Young’s Dairy longing for a spinning wheel so that I could do the magic of turning fluff into yarn. Well, I couldn’t afford a spinning wheel, but when I got home I figured out how to make a drop spindle out of a wooden car wheel and a dowell, got some wool off of ebay and went to town. Two rabbits, a monthly fiber group get-together, and many skeins of yarn later, I’m a happy spinner who had a booth in a tent at the Wool Gathering on the grounds of Young’s Dairy and sold every single spindle I made to sell!! I put Logan in the “pod” under the table while he slept and helped other people learn how to spin. It was a great time and I’m excited that it went so well. Barry did so much to help me. I wish everyone in the world could have a husband like him and feel so loved–he puts his all into something if he knows it means a lot to me. Thank you Barry…

OK, here is the blog. Let the games begin!