This playing with fiber thing is kind of fun...

Really fun, in fact, it's getting down right addicting. (EEEK)

Every year, in June, there is a magnificent "festival" in Eugene, Oregon - called the Black Sheep Gathering. It started over 25 years ago, when the editors of the "Black Sheep Newsletter" wanted to find a way to get fiber producers and fiber users together - (for more history info, click here ) John & I have tried to go when ever we could over the past ten years - it is fun to be able to see the different sheep, goats, bunnies, etc. - AND there is THE BEST vendor show - two big barns FULL of all kinds of trouble - Oh, I meant fiber and fiber related things to buy!

Well about three or four years ago, I bought this:


(Actually it all came stuffed into a paper sack. I had the presence of mind to separate it out into little baggies.)

Angora locks - dyed in the most divine jewel tones I had ever seen. At the time, I had no idea how I would ever use it (or process it for that matter) - but since then, I have added a set of hand carders to my toy collection. When I took the spinning class from Yvonne a couple of months ago, we experimented a little with hand carded fiber and I sat and watched one of the gals at spinner guild hand card a whole bunch of fleece last month.

So I decided I was READY!

Here is what I came up with - there is some pink and some burgandy hiding there someplace - it is like working with fluffy colored clouds - like holding a big handful of cotton candy. What fun.



So, I got some of it spun up and I plied it with this





And now it looks like this













The gals at work really liked it, however I suspect that they just didn't want to hurt my feelings. I'm going to make a purse out of it - found a neat pattern in one of the new crochet books I have been collecting. I'll keep you posted! (and I'm making my list of things that I want to bring back from Eugene THIS year.)