Hi, all :) I made a couple of significant purchases at Michigan Fiber Festival, thought I'd share some thoughts on them, FWIW. First--almost before the vendor booth was officially open--I bought some beautiful Border Leicester/mohair 50-50 blends, dyed in wonderful autumn colors. They are, I guess, 'clouds' in that they aren't roving, but they are well picked and probably carded at least once. Super simple to spin, I'm going to make a woven vest. The colors are as subtle and soft as the fiber--quiet golds, greens, and rusts with touches of purple and blue. I bought 2 pounds, so you know I was taken with the colors :) At another booth there were two things that fascinated me. One was some angora/merion/silk roving that had been space dyed in wonderful color combos. She also had skeins of spun yarns from the rovings--unfortunately, didn't have the color way I particularly loved in the skein, to sell as roving, so I substituted two others. One is in soft golden yellow and peach, the other in medium oranges and pinks. They should work well together. Since they were dyed as roving, they're a bit of a pain to prepare for spinning, but worth the effort. And <drumroll> I finally found a fast and affordable electric spinner! It has a motor that the man first said went to 5,000 rpm, later he said he couldn't guarantee that, but I hope to contact him after he gets home to talk about details like that. What mattered is it definitely is faster than my Ashford Traveller with the Lace Flyer, treadled at 100 treadles per minute--not a speed I can physically keep up for long, as far as the treadling goes. And it winds on very nicely, and the hooks on the flyer are big enough they don't catch threads at all--what a wonderful thing! Every time I think a hook has caught a thread it turns out to be something else. I filled several bobbins yesterday, playing with a variety of fibers and yarn types. It spun everything with ease. Best, probably, with roving--can really zoom when the drafting is painless. But the speed is fully adjustable, so could do fine worsted yarns through to chunky woolen with no problem. It's also amazingly quiet, even at the fastest speed. Yippee! :) And the downside--do beware when buying angora <sigh> I thought I was being careful--I asked the lady if it was plucked, and she assured me it was. She said I could open the container, which was marked 'prime' and '1 ounce'. The fibers on top were shorter than what I get, but that's nearly always true, and they were clearly longer than 3 inches, so I was reasonably satisfied. Got it home, opened it up, just about passed out from the mildew smell I hadn't noticed in the vendor barn. Then weighed it--exactly 1/2 ounce, not one ounce! And then started spinning it--it's clipped, not plucked, lots of second cuts, and LOTS of really short fiber--most of it averaged well under 3 inches, much is as short as 2 inches. My skein of finished yarn is not close enough to 1/2 ounce after all that was shed to be able to sell it. I'll give the vendor a chance to make good on this product, but have to say caveat emptor yet again. One person's 'prime' angora is another's trash fiber, good only for home use yarns. It's a shame there's not a better standard set. Check the angora you buy carefully! I was in a hurry, or would have checked more closely. Will next time, whether rushed or not! Holly To stop mail temporarily mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: set nomail To restore send: set mail
