The fiber arts world is a wonderful example of "what comes around goes around", but in a nice way that I'm going to call the "The Rainbow Connection".   (OK, I admit that I have a bit of obsession with muppets but we won't go there now).  So, the reality of the modern fiber arts world is that we are all connected to each other somehow--from small farmers to big mills, spinners to needle artists of all kinds, tiny indie designers to "fashion week" moguls to some guy wearing his favorite T-shirt, modern artists to our ancestors who worked with fiber for warmth and necessity more than luxury.  Fiber connects us all.  It is  necessity, hobby, art, entertainment and much, much more.  I could go on forever, but will save it for a book I hope to write someday.

The point of this is that today I made a little connection in this fiber arts world that made me smile, and just wanted to show how a bit of fluff begins the process of making the rounds.  I purchased this set of batts (coincidentally, a rainbow of little batts in different colors, imagine that?) from Loop on Etsy back in August of 2007.  Aren't they gorgeous?

At the time I couldn't wait to get my hands on them, and spun them into this fun striped yarn I call Kindergarten, plied with black thread and coils surrounding glass beads:

The yarn was then purchased from my Etsy store by Char of CharteChic.  She crocheted it into this gorgeous shawl, which was recently sold to a woman who has plans to take it with her on a trip to Peru:

It wouldn't surprise me at all to find out that some of the Alpaca or other fibers in the batts I originally purchased came from Peru.  What comes around truly does go around in this world, doesn't it?

On the heels of my last post, more about prepping fibers using the drum carder.  I bought some gorgeous, unbelievable cloud-like dyed alpaca fiber from North Star Alpacas.  Here it is (well, what's left of it).  I plan to spin this bit from the locks into a puffy cloud yarn of some sort:

Here's what happened when I separated the colors and added it to some gorgeous Coopworth roving I bought from Hatchtown Farm at Rhinebeck last fall.  I layered it on the drum carder, then split each batt into 4 pieces, fluffed them out and ran them through a second time. The blend is about 1/3 Coopworth and 2/3 Alpaca, soft and light as air.

And then I made some more, smaller batts from the same fibers, though I was not as precise on the percentage of wool and alpaca in these since I was running out of the Coopworth.  I turned these batts into roving with a method I saw on a great YouTube video that I can't find now, aargh.  I made my own diz using a chinese soup container lid and my hole puncher (how thrifty!).  I loosened about an inch width of the batt at one one edge and pulled the fibers off the large drum an inch or so at a time, through the diz.  These should spin up with no pre-drafting or other prep, which is a huge plus in my book.  Who knew you could make your own roving this easily:

I can't wait to see the different yarns I get from these three preparations.  I will add photos of the yarns to this post when I've spun each one up.

Who ever thought you could love a drum carded named Leonard?  I had no idea.  Really.  I bought my Strauch "Finest" drum carder a while ago...more than a year I guess.  And I named it Leonard after Craig's grandfather, Leonard.  That's a story in itself that I'll save for another day...

So, I used Leonard from time to time, and enjoyed making batts, sort of.  The carder worked beautifully with washed wool locks, and I could make nice batts using commercially prepared wool top, thinning it out and feeding it in.  But when I tried to use lightweight fibers like silk, angora, mohair, alpaca, or sparkle, all I got were these lousy flyaway batts that were thin and ugly.  The fiber laid on top of the teeth instead of going in.  As an added bonus, all of this flyaway fiber did just that--it flew--everywhere.  I got fiber stuck all over me, up my nose, on my face, arms, legs (which itches like crazy, by the way)  Yuck!  I got discouraged and didn't make batts that often, and was worried that I should have purchased a less "fine" carder for my big $$$

Then I read this wonderful post by Maple of North Star Alpacas, about using her Drum Carder with her Alpaca fiber.  She gave me the idea that I should buy a big brush to help get the fibers into the drum.  A few days later (and before buying the big brush from the paint store), a light bulb finally went on in my brain about the brush attachment the machine already had.  "Crank the brush attachment down" was what the voice in my head told me.  You see, I was letting the brush ride on top of the drum.  I tightened it down in place, but had never pushed it down hard enough to actually help push the fibers into the drum. On my first turn of the handle with the brush tightened down, it was pure joy!

Now take a look at some of these fabulous, big, thick and gorgeous batts that Leonard has helped me make.  This set is called "spring is coming" and they are all mine, though I expect I will list them for sale when they're spun up (soon):

And this set is "Carnival Ride" and is for sale in my Etsy shop, (along with some bright obnoxious St. Patrick's Day batts that I won't blind you with here):

There's nothing like falling in love all over again.

I just ran across this site via internet gossip and found it so fascinating that I had to share a quick link to it.  The designer is using old newspapers to spin into yarn for household items such as a floor mat, curtains, even an ottoman!!  A great recycling idea and while I'm not sold on the idea of absorbing tons of ink through my fingers while spinning it, I think her results and the product examples shown are fabulous!!

Check it out at dezeen:  Yarn from old Newspapers by Greetje van Tiem