Iris's yarn

The roving I'm spinning reminds me of my rabbit, Iris.

The yarn, not so much.

The fiber is Cormo and Cormo X. I got it from Cormo 24/7 at Greencastle. It is sooo nice to spin. Very clean, very soft, and very fine. I'm naming the yarn for Iris, anyway.

Phoebe's first skein

I just completed my first skein from Phoebe, a cormo fleece that I got at Greencastle. There are a few slubby spots, but all-in-all, I'm pleased with it. It is a nice clean white color and, of course, very soft. This was my first real experience with flick carding. I found it to be rather time consuming, but I liked the control it gave me. I felt I could spin a more consistent fine yarn this way, and since I prefer to weave fine, I am trying to practice spinning fine when I do spin. I haven't measured the wpi on this, but by eyeballing it, I'm guessing I could weave with this at about 20 epi or so.

My Poor Naked Looms

I feel like I've been neglecting my looms lately. I don't feel too guilty, though, since I have a couple of good reasons. First, I bought some awesome fibers at Greencastle a couple of weeks ago.

First was this beautiful silk from Robin Edmundson. She had so many great yarns and fibers in so many beautiful colorways, it was hard to choose.

I also bought a raw Cormo fleece from Westfield Woolies. I decided to process it myself. I have never washed a fleece before. I have washed this one now, and it's still drying. I am going to flick card it since it has a nice long staple. I have already learned one important lesson: Be more careful about skirting. What I have isn't too bad, though, and I'm excited to see how it turns out.
Last, I bought this beautiful roving from Greyside Farm. It is alpaca, shetland, and silk. I have already spun quite a bit of it, and it's turning out very nice. I am going to use the yarn in a project for our guild's straight draw program in June. After the program is over, I'll post more about it.

So that's one reason I've been spinning so much instead of weaving. The second is that I've been spending time trying to bond with my new bunny. She lives in the basement, so I can take my wheel down there and spin while I hang out with her. Iris seems to really like the wheel. If I leave it unattended within her reach, she thinks it would make a fabulous chew toy. This makes me think it would be a very bad idea to take one of the looms to the basement to use while I spend time with her. She also seems to find my spinning relaxing. One evening as I was spinning, she hopped to the end of the room and stretched her whole body across the floor. It was relaxed as I have ever seen her. Another time she sat behind my legs and kept bumping my ankles as I spun. She seemed to think that was a fun game. I wound up with a rather slubby skein that time! Anyway, I think I'll have to keep spinning while she's around because she seems to frighten so easily at any other time and especially when I run the washer and dryer. Hopefully spinning will be a way to keep her increasingly calm and friendly.