Thursday, February 19, 2009

I Could Get Used to This


I love working around the house in my jammies and getting dressed at 1 in the afternoon. It's snowing and blowing outside but the woodstove has us toasty warm inside. We only had one episode of black smoke filling the apt. due to sudden downdrafts. I am elbows deep in wool, sorting out all the burrs, sticks, matted parts, and salvaging the rest for washing and dyeing. I have two dye pots going, and the washer full of soaking wool. The hardest part, besides finding the time, is getting the fiber dry. The hot summer sun is the best way to do it, but I have to get ready for my first show and have to get the fiber out to the mill for carding. I can only dry one batch at a time on the kitchen table, so I have a back log. While it's drying I seperate locks for faster drying and pick out any chaff that I missed. Right now I'm doing a bright red run, which will be variegated with some brilliant blue angora and emerald green wool, maybe other things, I don't know yet. I get bored with plain roving. People who buy my roving know they are going to get some crazy stuff. In the meantime, I have to figure out how I'm going to cut out bags with all this wool on my cutting table. Oh, to have a big studio with lots of tables! I am still wrapping the patchouli soap. I finished the lemon eucalyptus but have no labels yet. I really need a new printer...as well as a new camera. I borrowed a nice one from school but have to go back to work to get the pictures downloaded. Mia is going to check around where she lives in NJ for good deals on a point and shoot I can carry around the barn. I had a nice one that I think I ruined by carrying it in my sports bra. Now the view finder won't open - sweat maybe? My last one was drowned by a bottle of milk replacer that leaked in my jacket pocket. I am very hard on cameras. Back to the wool...oh, the pungent, earthy smell of it, the feel of it, the different characters of the fleece according to the animal it came from and the quality of the food it ate - I get lost in the crimp and the hours fly by. I guess that's why I'm in the wool business.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i miss you so much!!! oxox

Kathleen said...

I love the smell of wool, too. It reminds me of the farm! And Ooo la la, bright red wool with bits of other colors throughout sounds wonderful! I love the woo I got from you, with all the other colors that are carded in.

I'm not hard on cameras, but O is always lending out either the camera itself, or the cable to download the photos...which is where I've been stuck for the last week and a half - waiting for the cable to come back from wherever it is. I have a memory card full of project pictures and no way to download them!