Yep, I've been a fibermaniac for several years now. I learned to spin a few years back and fell in love with it. I used to spin at faires and I can often be seen spinning at SCA events.
My spinning wheel is an Ashford Traveller. I got it in kit form, and woodburned Celtic knotwork all over it before putting it together. It has traveled with me all over southern California and even to Las Vegas.
I used to spin primarily on my spinning wheel. Recently I've been spending more time
spinning on my drop spindles, for portability and ease of chasing Brendan. I have
several
Lollipop spindles, and I like them very much.
I usually spin wool, Merino or Romney being what I've worked with the most. I've also worked with merino/mohair blend. I've experimented some with cotton and with a silk/cotton blend. I've spun up some doghair, Keeshond. I've got some samples of flax, hemp, and angora that I expect to experiment with someday, but not immediately. I have a bag of qivit set aside for someday, when I get good. . . so soft. . .
I've started in with weaving. The first loom I got is a table tapestry loom, very simple. I just wish that warping it was as simple. Karl gave me an inkle loom for Yule - whee! I've been having fun with that. I made trim for our wedding outfits, a strap for my new doumbek, and trim and belts for royal presentations. I've started with weaving commercial yarns, but I plan to weave with handspun yarns in the future.
My current favorite project is weaving blue and white striped ribbons for the ] Legion of Courtesy award recipients. I presented the first batch of these to the Crown at Twelfth Night, Jan. 2000. I intend to keep weaving them for the Crown, and I have also given away 4 of them to previous recipients of the award who preferred them to the commercial ribbons. I think the recipients of this award are a wonderful example to all of us in the SCA, and deserve the extra effort. ( Legion of Courtesy award information) I'm really glad I took this up. I'm learning a lot from it. It took a while to find weaving thread thin enough for a ribbon, and it took some readjusting to be able to weave threads that thin without breaking them. (Or at least too often)
I recently attended a mini-collegium in the Barony of Dreiburgen, where I took a class in using the lucet, and another on card-weaving. I really enjoyed both classes. I'm looking forward to learning more card-weaving.
I taught my first spinning class as the Carreg Wen Academia in November 1998. I think it went ok! I also taught a class in how to make a basic Irish leinna - that's the bright blue garment or the with the big sleeves you see me wearing in various pictures or in the SCA.
Due to interest from the Caid mailing list, I converted the handouts I used for the leine classe to webpages and posted them here on my webpage. The leine class starts here. I hope to improve it soon, as the originals were just notes to jog my memory, and I know not all points are clear enough.
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