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!

Yes, I really *have* been spinning...

and to prove it, a few photos. None are completed projects as I'm always starting one thing, then another, then dropping those to go experiment with something else!

Speaking of experiments, I've got a really cool mohair single spun up as one of those totally hairy art yarns. I just HAD to see if I could do it. Don't know if I did it correctly, but I did it and *I* like it. The Angora goat (from Feathers and Fleece Farm - no website) was amazingly colored. There are, like, 5 or 6 colors (NOT shades..colors!) on this doe: white, cream, champagne, silver, medium grey, medium taupe - and several shadings of each one. GORGEOUS! I think this had to be yearling mohair, at least. Some of it was as soft as super-kid, even. You might have to click on the picture to enlarge it as not much detail can be seen, otherwise. I tried to take a good picture, I really did!











I have also done a bit of experimental spinning on four gorgeous silk hankies from The Yarn Yard in the UK, hand-dyed in glorious Autumn colors. There isn't much done yet, and my spinning is just terrible (I've NO idea what I'm doing when it comes to silk hankies and caps) and, of course, my photog "skills" are just total crap, but...in person this stuff just glows (literally). I think it would be very hard to ruin silk, regardless of how badly it was spun (or is that just wishful thinking?).











Lastly, I've got 2 full bobbins-worth of a spongy, down-like roving from "Shadow", a ram (wether?) on Nancy's farm, Naked Pines Ranch. I can't believe it, but I've forgotten what his breed is! It's white with lots of black fibers running through it, and my sis thinks I ought to make it a 3-ply. I've tons of it, so I guess I'll be spinning just about forever on it! Hope Nancy's got more, though - I really like this stuff :-)