I’ve been excited about going to OF&F for several months now. I wanted to go, not just to see all the vendors and stuff, but because I wanted to get a couple more Jenkins turkish spindles. They are difficult to get right now, because they sold out so much stock at Black Sheep. So I got some not-Jenkins spindles, an Enid Ashcroft Midge in a trade and a Riley petite:
I was thinking about getting another Lark, maybe a Kuchulu or a Swan for plying. For several months, all my discretionary spending was put on hold to build up my spindle fund. (Except for buying a bit of fiber–I do have priorities!) But I was disappointed to learn that they would not be at OF&F. I planned to go anyway, and put my spindle buying on hold. And then, I found out they would be at an alpaca farm for an open house. AND, there would be spindles! So Lon and I headed out on Saturday, in a pretty bad wind/rain storm, for the alpaca place. And I did get my spindles. In fact, I got exactly the types that I’d decided that I wouldn’t get, an Aegean and Egret. I will leave the Swan and Kuchulu for another day, maybe Black Sheep next year.
Here’s the family portrait:
I did make a blitz visit to OF&F and purchased a nice braid from Dicentra. I tried doing a low twist single on the new Egret, which looks something like this:
It is interesting to spin that Egret. It’s Pacific Yew and very light for its size. I tried some finer singles, and it did not work well for that. It seems to do a nice job of plying. I really was starting to think I’d made a mistake buying it. That’s why I started the project on it. My lap spindle is very heavy and I don’t really like using it these days. But I do like low twist singles. If this knits up okay, then I’ll have a replacement for the lap spindle. The oak aegean, by contrast, feels much heavier. It’s actually 10 grams lighter. My thinking has been that the width of the arms would affect the amount of twist put into the fiber. That seems to be true.
