It’s good to have friends, especially fiber friends who know things that you don’t know!

I have some new yarn that I’m carrying in the Farm Store.  It’s really fun stuff – - handspun sari silk yarn from India.  I have it in a beautiful deep red, as well as gorgeous multi-colored skeins.  I also have some really cute shawl patterns to go with it.

This yarn is hand spun by women in India, and although they do a great job taking what is basically “waste” silk threads from the sari industry and turning it into this brightly colored yarn, it has one problem.  It’s overtwisted.

You can see from the picture that even when it’s relaxed, it’s not relaxed at all!  Here’s where it’s great to have friends.  When I was showing this yarn to my spinning group this past Wednesday, they suggested that I ply the extra twist out of it.

That’s pretty much what I did.  I ran the yarn through my wheel in the plying direction, holding it out from the wheel about a yard.  This took some of that extra twist out, and I am now left with a much more workable yarn.

This is the same skein, but without the extra twist.  There is still enough twist left in it to hold it together as yarn.

Here’s a side-by-side comparison with another skein.

Yep, it’s good to have friends, especially friends who share their great ideas!

document.write('

One of the things I like MOST about getting together with fiber friends is seeing other people’s Finished Objects (FO’s) and Works in Progress (WIP’s).

Wouldn’t it be fun if we could do the same thing online?

Now we can!

Every THURSDAY pop on over to this blog and add a picture of either something you’ve recently finished or something you are working on.

If you’re an early poster, be sure and come back later in the day to see what others are doing!

I know I have some creative friends, and I would love to see what you’re making.

Hope you’ll join us!

document.write('

The last few days have been beautiful and made it a pleasure to be outside.  My fiber life has been all about washing mohair so that I’m sure that I’ll have plenty for the class I’m teaching Friday on…. wait for it … Spinning Mohair Curls!

Mohair undergoes a remarkable transformation during the washing process, much more so than wool.  You start with the dirty stuff…

Mohair on the skirting table

We throw the really yucky stuff on the ground where it will eventually be carried to the compost pile.  Our loyal black lab is patiently waiting for me to pick up his black rubber bone and through it so he can run after it, bring it back to me, and patiently wait for me to throw it, again, and again, and again.

Fur on the ground

The parts of the fleece that are not curly enough to appeal to hand spinners get put into another bag (the white inside-out feed bag in the picture).  Sometimes I send these pieces to Spinderella’s to have them carded into mohair roving.  But this year, I’m going to blend them with some alpaca second grade fiber and have it spun into rug wool.  I’m looking forward to dyeing some of it, and weaving it into rugs.

Once it’s washed, you end up with really pretty stuff that’s ready to spin.  It’s like magic!

Clean mohair on the drying rack

I hope my students will enjoy spinning it as much as I do!

It is ALWAYS fun to introduce new folks to spinning on the spinning wheel.

Today it was DOUBLY fun because the person coming to spin was a good friend of the Farm (and of my DD#1), Miss Fran.

Back in July, Fran brought her kids out to the Farm to join DD#1 and two of her kids for a Kids’ Dye Day.  The first bit of roving that Fran’s son, Nick, dyed was (at Fran’s request) very RED.

Today, Miss Fran came back to the Farm and spun her Very Red (and Sparkly) fiber batt!  My Schacht Sidekick turned out to be the perfect wheel for her to spin on, and then she plied her singles into a beautiful 2-ply yarn on my Majacraft Aura.

I can hardly wait to see what it ultimately becomes!