Missed

Rarely does a Saturday sneak by without time spent up in my fiber room.  After a decade of spending Saturday mornings with vivacious fiber friends I find myself lonely when I wake up on that day.  I’ve been away from Colorado seven months and I still miss these ladies.  One of them died suddenly a couple weeks ago so today was especially solemn for me as I remembered her sagacious nature.  The feel of fiber running through the fingers was a soothing way to work out some nostalgic memories.

One of my Colorado friends gave me a parting gift of some Cheviot she had solar dyed.  She is a clever friend always experimenting with fiber and has a superb set-up for dying yarn out in the brilliant Colorado sun.  Months before, when she brought this solar dyed roving to a fiber show-and-tell, I was smitten with the exquisite colors.  I don’t know if she remembered how I loved it when she gifted this to me but I was pretty jubilant to be its recipient.

Cheviot is a fiber I had not spun with until today.  Cheviot sheep find their origins in the border areas between England and Scotland.  My Field Guide to Fleece says they are very active sheep and need herding dogs to keep them in order.  My resource also said that people who raise Border Collies will use Cheviot sheep for training them.

But before I could dive into the Cheviot I had some unfinished business to tackle.

I had to finish up plying the last bit of fiber I had on my wheel.  I am glad to have accomplished this feat because this has been a long, lengthy project.  The next step for this baby will be to put it on the niddy noddy, then soak it and put it into a braid.  That will have to wait until next Saturday though but since I’m anxious to spin the Cheviot.

I fluffed out the roving in an effort to align the fibers and make it easier to split into more manageable sections to spin.

Fractal spinning is my go-to for most hand dyed fiber.  After dividing the fiber in half, I then took each half and split it again.  One I left alone  and will spin it as is onto the first bobbin.  The other half I split into six narrower strips.  They will be spun one after the other onto the second bobbin. The two bobbins will lastly be plied together.

As I prepped the fiber the colors made me think about the gaillardia wildflowers that have been blooming on the property.

Wondering if the colors were the same, I took a little break and with pruners and a flower basket in hand walked down to a big patch of them to compare the colors.  They were dazzling in the noonday sun and the colors were indeed very similar.  I gathered some and headed back to start spinning.

What say you?  Shall I name my project Indian Blanket (gaillardia)?