Christmas stash acquisitions

Not to make you drool or anything, but here is some of my BFL Stash from Miss Babs. Chucked into the pile is some bright RED Fleece Artist...well, fleece. Roving, that is. I picked it up at I-forget-which-shop on the Yarn Crawl. No time to list all the colors - I'm yawning my head off and why I am still up?!? But I feel like I've been really behind on the blog - am trying to semi catch up.












Annnnd, these lovelies are from Ruth MacGregor, of course, of Spinning Forth (please see sidebar until I can put in all the links).













Again, I'm much too tired to list the colors, but I will, soon!

*** UPDATE 01-07-09 *** Silk colors, clockwise from bottom of left photo:
Silk spinning kit w/spindle - Garnet - 50g, Aubergine - 50g, Canard - 50g, Red - 50g, Sunspot - 50g, Coquelicot - 50g (middle)

Ruth told me, when I was enquiring about how much silk I might need to make a medium-sized project, that 50 grams of silk went much further than 50 g of wool. She said if you spin the silk fairly thin, it should get you a scarf that stretches from neck to waist (!). I'm assuming that means using large enough needles to get lace, but I didn't think to ask her.

Read blog post below for the Discussion Of The Scarves! You will probably have noticed that the poll has disappeared. There's a good reason for that...

My willpower is so strong...

NOT.

I don't really have any spinning silk (well, none to speak of, neway) and I'm kind of scared of spinning plain, straight silk, so I've mostly avoided getting any. Until today.

Ruth MacGregor, of Spinning Forth - Temptress Extraordinaire and Enabler that she is - has just dyed up a fresh batch of her glorious silks. PLEASE go see her website! Not only does she sell gorgeous hand-dyed silk, but she's also got wonderful articles and videos on How To Do Stuff!

I fell resoundingly from my (pathetically brief) self-imposed Fiber Fast and ordered one of her spinning kits (spindle, her silk-spinning book plus 50 gms silk), and ... um ... several more 50 gm hanks of other colors. I hope Ruth doesn't mind my borrowing these photos 'til I have some of my own (I'll ask her!), but feast your eyes (hey, wipe yer slobber off her pics!) on these...

No, I didn't get ALL the colors. Just...most of them. I'm not saying just how many. Wouldn't want anyone to be jealous. Or anything. Some of these are new colors (I think!) - there are many, many more on her site. All of them glow like cut jewels - all of them. I will try to list the colors later, but I got Stuff To Do Today, so it might take awhile before I get the time to do it.

She told me that 50 grams of wool, as any spinner knows, doesn't go very far (she's right - it doesn't!), but with silk one 50 gm hank would make a hang-to-the-waist scarf.

Wow! I didn't know that, but I should've figured. The problem will be in ME spinning it thinly enough. Well, practice makes perfect, but the thought of barfing this up makes my stomach hurt. We'll see!