This past Fall my DH and I started holding Bible Study meetings in our home. The decision to do so was hindered by many factors, including what I was going to do about all the wool paraphernalia in our dining room/wool studio. You see, the men were to meet in the family room in our basement and the ladies would meet around or dining room table. While I don't like housework I don't hate it either, but the stress of cleaning our home for the meeting on a weekly basis was going to be tricky if I had to remove all the wool too.
I managed to corral most of the wool on the built-in china cabinet, hoping it would pass for "organized". I've always been disorganized so this was a huge step for me. I worried and fretted about what the others would say, and then DH said to let it alone. So I did.
Well, we had a fine meeting, it was our first so we discussed what we wanted to study and had prayer time and some fellowship (Lutheran-speak for coffee and bars). No one asked what the fluffy stuff on the china cabinet was or why there was so much yarn about. And then Cindy handed me a plastic grocery bag and said, "Can you spin this?"
"This" was a bag of cat combings, soft white and fluffy, about a 2.5 inch staple. It was clean, so I informed her I could, but it would need to be blended with wool to make it something I'd want to spin. She thought she had a wool allergy so I hand carded up a batt containing 50/50 by volume of the cat fur and some CVM I had stilling around (remember the china hutch?) and spun it up into a quick 2-ply yarn. I had her wear that yarn around her wrist for a couple days to see if it was going to irritate her skin. She was still wearing it weeks later, loving the feel of the soft yarn! Wool allergy, hah!
Here's a couple shots of the project so far:
The bobbin has singles on it, which I plan to ply for a lace-weight yarn. It's sitting on a batt of the blended white cat fur and gray CVM fleece, blended at a loosely 60% cat fiber / 40% CVM wool by weight. I have drum carded the fibers twice with splitting the first batts to blend the fibers for the 2nd batts.
The second picture shows the approximate staple length I'm working with, a little more than 3 inches. Because of the arrangement of the fibers I'm able to so a sort of long-draw drafting method. Hopefully I'll be able to finish spinning the yarn this week. I plan to knit the yarn into a scarf from Arctic Lace for Cindy, who is patiently waiting for her cat/wool project to be completed.
So far none of the Bible Study ladies have mistaken my spinning wheel for a loom. I think they might be afraid of the drumcarder, its a Supercarder and all the "Danger" stickers are a little scary.
