I'm going to learn to spin yarn

[bicentennial_baby]

In my never ending quest to be even craftier than I already am, I've decided to learn to spin yarn. Yesterday I bought a drop spindle kit with a dvd.

Hopefully tonight will be uneventful enough that I can start on it.

I'm also thinking about getting back into making stained glass objects.

Oh, and I started reclaiming my garden today too, and started cleaning up the yard.

In the sea of insanity that is my life right now, I need to stay busy. Very, very busy.

[canoeist52]

1. any chance the drop spindle video is by Barbara Clorite?

[Richard Steele]

2. So, can I start sending you the balls of cat fur I pull out of the lint trap?

I've always thought that someone somewhere could put them to good use.

They're softer than angora, and it's not like the cats need them back.

[FloridaJudy]

4. That's not so crazy

There's a woman who makes hand-bags out of cat hair. She charges a pretty penny for them too! http://www.cattyshackcreations.com/08/3csCHr.htm

My sister is a spinner, and she's made garments out of her angora rabbits' fur. Note to PETA members - no animals are harmed producing those sweaters/scarves. You just have to brush your bunnies frequently.

[Richard Steele]

5. I know it's not crazy.

What seems "crazy" to me is the fact that millionaires
pay $2000 for sweaters knitted from raw angora wool
that costs $150/ounce, in a country where us cat lovers
dump five thousand tons of cat fur into landfills every year.

I've personally known about a dozen cats whose fur was
finer, softer, and longer than that "Angorean-goat throat hair"
that they make "Angora Sweaters" from,
and I think most cat lovers my age can say the same.

[DeepBlueC]

17. I've often said "if cat fur were a cash crop I'd be a very wealthy woman"

Could the time be now?

[Inchworm]

3. Figure it out...

I'll start saving dog hair!!!

[csziggy]

6. Take up Spanish Moss weaving - it is a soon to be lost art if someone does not learn it

This is a really interesting story and she is an amazing woman.

http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/article9...



Spanish moss, piled in her yard, takes half a year to decay in the Florida heat and humidity. A 6-foot pile in January is 2 inches high in July and dark and wiry like a Brillo pad.

Inside her living room, where the floor is plywood, she painstakingly removes debris from the Spanish moss Brillo.

Next she works the tendrils into something resembling thread. On a small spinning wheel she feeds the thread a little at a time. Within minutes she has a few feet of something that looks like yarn.

It takes a week or so to position hundreds of strands of yarn properly onto her loom, a contraption as large as an upright piano.

Alone in her mobile home, as she sits in her wheelchair, she slowly weaves her Spanish moss into something beautiful and utilitarian.

[Brother Buzz]

7. That was a good read. Thanks

I will never look at Spanish moss the same way ever again.

[csziggy]

8. What I can't figure out is why she hasn't been eaten by chiggers

I pick up one strand of Spanish moss and I get 15-20 bites that plague me for weeks. Otherwise, I would consider taking up the art of weaving the stuff.

[Brother Buzz]

10. Do chickens eat chiggers?

Oh, I live in California and have no idea what a chigger is.

[csziggy]

11. Chiggers are probably too small for chickens, though they could eat them

Here is what a chigger looks like magnified 1500 times:


Chiggers are tiny mite larva and their bites itch like nothing you could imagine. The worst part is that they get where clothing stops them - the edges of pants and panties, bras, cuffs, etc. And nothing stops the itch except time. The bites can itch for weeks.

More than you could ever want to know about chiggers - http://mdc.mo.gov/nathis/arthopo/chiggers/

[Brother Buzz]

14. Ha! Here's the plan, Stan:

Harvest the moss in the winter and spring before chiggers appear, then pile it up and wait until it decomposes. By that time it has decomposed the chiggers have moved on to happier hunting grounds and you can safely woke it. Just an idea.

[csziggy]

16. Yes, that would work. Too bad our trees don't have much moss on them

But I will think about it.

[Heidi]

9. CMW's sister does that.

She also has five or six sheep that provide her with wool.

[MrCoffee]

12. The secret is to take the wool off the sheep first.

I learned that the hard way. Trust me, you do not want the hassle of cleaning that up.

[bicentennial_baby]

13. Whoa! Thanks for the tip!

[MajorChode]

15. Who needs sheep when you can use pussy fur?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSOh34982Vo