Marnie, speak! Good girl.

My mom and I are in beautiful Eugene, Oregon, to see the Black Sheep Gathering. It's a lovely event, not too big but not the least bit small, either. It was really hard to leave for the day, but most likely a good idea that we did. There were more than a few fantastically beautiful spindles calling my name, and trying the Louet Julia is going to haunt my spinning fantasies for a while. I should curse Wooland Woolworks for having so many wheels out for test driving. Evil temptresses, every last one of them. But they were so nice, I can't be mad.

The sheep and goats (Parenthetically, I have a hard time distinguishing certain breeds of sheep from goats and am not diligent enough to actually read the tags describing each animal. So if I call something a goat and it's actually a sheep, that's just my own flakiness.) were endearing though I was a bit started to realize how much like Babe, the male sheep were. Yowza! No, I didn't snap any proof, you big sicko.

Anyway, a cute sheep in a coat, makes googoo eyes at me.

And two little goats snuggle up for a nap.

A few more cutie pies over on flickr, if that's not enough.

And if you want still more livestock, here's a little movie I put together to give you a feel for how loud those goats can be.

I also got myself some damn fine roving. I'm so in love with this haul.

And my mom treated me to a gorgeous new, hand blown, glass orifice hook.

And of course, my mom got a few nice things too.

All in all, a really fun day.

I just finished reading The Alden Amos Big Book of Handspinning and by "reading" I mean "felt my brain ooze slowly out my ears." Don't get me wrong, there is much that is useful and splendid about this book, but I wasn't expecting to need a slide rule and protractor to learn how to spin yarn well. I wouldn't recommend this as a learn-to-spin book, and I feel, perhaps, his opinions lacked nuance, but I did learn a lot and have found myself joined at the treadle to El Matchador.

Along with the One Wild Night fiber I spun up recently, I have two new skeins of yarn to share with you.

The blue and white is 100% cotton from A Verb For Keeping Warm

The colorway is called Kyoto, and it was far less scary to spin than I thought it would be. I used a long draw method and plied it from both ends of a center-pull ball. I just made sure to add in loads of twist to the singles and the finished yarn.

Weight: 1 ounce. I have another ounce to spin.
Yards: 154
WPI: Approx 24
Plies: 2

The other yarn is a Pygora/Silk blend from Rainbow Yarns NW

This colorway is called, First Love, and it's a luscious, deep, rich red. I made this a two ply from two bobbins, since this fiber is sold as two floofy little batts. Of course, I didn't spin both bobbins perfectly evenly so I andean plied the last little bit from the bobbin with more singles.

Weight: 2 ounces
Yards: 224
WPI: Approx 22
Plies: 2

I bought both fibers at the Black Sheep festival this year and am very pleased with both purchases. Kristine Vejar of A Verb For Keeping Warm was so gracious when I wrote to ask her if I had to boil the cotton after spinning it. In case you are wondering, no. Before dying the fiber she had to remove the wax that boiling is needed to remove. If you are not a spinner, her yarns look lovely too.

And if you have been waiting for an excuse to try Pygora you won't find a nicer example of it than the stuff from Terry and Susan, over at Rainbow Yarns NW. When Leo first touched these batts, I thought he was going to dive into the bag and make a nest. This stuff is luscious and these women really stand by their product. I've loved pygora since I first spun it but I've never spun any quite as nice as this.

I'm hoping to spin up the Blue Moon roving next.

I'm sure it'll look great on the girls' heads knit up.