Em's Answers

* What do you use your fiber for? Felting, needle felting, knitting
or crocheting, weaving?
I'm a knitter! I'd like to learn crochet, and needle felting, but I haven't got there yet.

* What kind of spinning do you do or what do you spin for?
I'm pretty new to spinning, and began with some homemade drop spindles. I'm very happy with spindle-spinning, and plan to play around with the various kinds and weights for a long time to come.
By the grace of Fortune, however, I've been loaned a spinning wheel for a few months, and a trying to get as much experience with it as possible!
Again, all my spinning turns into yarn I plan to knit up (someday), but right now I'm really just loving that I can make any yarn at all! I have hopes that in the future I will be able to spin fine enough for some couched-thread embroidery and lace knitting.

* If you knit, weave, spin, crochet, needle felt, or do other fibery
pursuits, how long have you been doing those things? What level of
expertise are you at?
I've been knitting for about five years and feel pretty accomplished with it; I love complex work like lace and cables, but there are also some techniques that I haven't even tried yet!
I've only been spinning for a few months, but I'm %100 addicted, and try to spin a bit every single day.

* What fibers have you worked with?
So far I have only spun wool, but have played with Coopworth, BFL, Merino, and a lovely long-stapled "mystery breed" (unmarked bag).

* Which fibers, fiber blends, and types of fibers do you prefer?
No real preferences yet, as I've just scratched the surface, but I love feeling fibres for softness and sheen.

* Are you interested in working with raw fleece? If so, what type?
Sure! Any type!

* What fibery tools do you currently have (e.g., spinning wheels,
drop spindles, combs, cards, etc.)?
Various handmade drop-spindles (furniture wheels, art-clay whorls, soapstone bead), an Ashford Elizabeth wheel (on loan), and I have once used the cat brush as a flick carder...

* Do you crave any tools, books, or videos?
It would be nice to someday have a spindle that looked pretty, and I'd love to get some combs and carders eventually. There aren't any book titles I desperately want, but as a bibliophile I do love having a well-stocked home library.

* What fibers are you absolutely dying to get your hands on?
New things! More special wool breeds, silks, maybe even flax...

* Which fibers do you absolutely not want to work with?
Smelly ones? Really, I'm open to trying anything, so long as it's quality.

* Do you prefer natural color fibers or pre-dyed fibers?
No preference, but I do enjoy the natural colours of fleeces equally to dyed ones.

* What are your dye and color preferences?
I love seeing the range of colours that can be achieved from all-natural dyes. That said, there are some truly beautiful non-natural dyes, too! I love autumnal colours (reds/coppers/browns/greens) and jewel tones (burgundy/emerald/sapphire/etc), but find myself also oddly drawn to soft, spring-flowery colours sometimes as well.

* Do you have any relevant allergies?
Pollens/smoke and I don't get along well.

Silver's Questionnaire

Here’s my questionnaire! The general idea of me is that I like to learn new things, and there are some old things I really love, so if you combine those two things in my package, I’ll be a happy camper! (Cyberfibercamper! Ha ... ha ... ehhh...)

* What do you use your fiber for?

Spinning yarn for knitting, and recently I've been weaving on small looms with commercial yarn, so I'll probably weave with handspun at some point. I've been *thinking* of trying felting with unspun fiber, but haven't actually started yet, as I have no felting stuff. ;)

* What kind of spinning do you do or what do you spin for?

At the moment I spindle spin, and see above for what I use it for. :D I’m still experimenting with different types of yarn.

* If you knit, weave, spin, crochet, needle felt, or do other fibery pursuits, how long have you been doing those things? What level of expertise are you at?

I've been spinning for a couple of years, knitting for a few more than that, and weaving for maybe a year on and off. I'm a novice weaver, probably an advanced beginner spinner, and maybe an advanced intermediate knitter. Oh, and I just started dyeing a lot (mostly with food grade dyes, but I’ve also used Jacquard Acid Dyes) and acquired a drum carder recently. :D

* What fibers have you worked with?

Alpaca, llama, various wools (including Merino, domestic blends, Colonial, Columbia, Cotswold, and English Leicester), tussah silk, a small amount of cotton, a teeeeny bit of flax, and I have some ramie waiting for me that I haven't played with yet. Probably also some other random things that aren't occurring to me right now. ;) I have some chiengora waiting for me in the stash, too.

* Which fibers, fiber blends, and types of fibers do you prefer?

Finer fibers, things with alpaca, things with sparkle. Someday I'll start spinning more plant fibers because I live in Florida and Must learn to work with cooler fibers. I like roving and batts equally, and I'll happily card and spin anything that comes along in another format, like spinning bells or laps or locks. Hand-dyed stuff is love; and even solid-colored, standard, commercial rovings are fun to blend, so all is well. :D

* Are you interested in working with raw fleece? If so, what type?

Sure! :D As above, finer fibers are usually my thing, and alpaca, and llama if it's not full of guard hairs. I also like Cotswold wool, and Columbia, and weird breed crosses, and things I won’t have to wash three times to get all the lanolin out. ;)

* What fibery tools do you currently have?

A few drop spindles (all home-made except two), double-pitch mini Valkyrie hand combs, Ashford fine cloth hand carders, a Louet roving carder, a 2x2 inch Weavette, and a homemade 12-inch square hand-held loom. There’s also a plastic umbrella swift, a ball winder, and an Ultimate Sweater Machine I haven’t taken the time to figure out yet. ;) I have no nostepindes or niddy noddies (except some jury-rigged sticks-with-dowel-rods-in-them that I used to wind skeins before I got the swift).

* Do you crave any tools, books, or videos?

Tools: One of those WPI comparison thingies that you're supposed to hold your yarn up to to keep it the same weight as you're spinning; a WPI wrappy gauge thingie; more nice spindles (I seem to mostly use light to medium weight, or a takhli or a Navajo spindle would be interesting to try out); more small hand-held looms; a nice wooden hairpin lace loom; weaving cards or any other small weaving thingies. If you happen to have them around and just want to get rid of them, I wouldn’t mind having a hackle (blending *or* flax ;)), some cotton hand carders, one of those little counter gadgets you use with a swift that tells you how much yardage you have, or a McMorran yarn balance, either. ;) (If you want to do a partial trade or something, rather than just being a crazily generous swap partner, feel free to ask ... ;D)

Books: Spin to Knit, Mabel Ross’s Encyclopedia of Handspinning, the Alden Amos book, Weaving and Spinning edited by Yvonne Deutch, The Spinner’s Companion by Bobbi Irwin -- really, almost any spinning book except Lee Raven's and The Joy of Spinning by Marilyn Kluger, which I have; and any magazines on spinning, knitting, weaving, or dyeing, except for the knitting magazines that came out in about 2005 and early 2006, a lot of which I think I have already.

Videos: I don't have any yet, sooo ... if there's an amazing one I need to have, you’d probably know better than I do!

Other stuff: It’s not tools, books, or videos, but I’d love some more dyes ... even if it’s just Kool-Aid packets or Wilton’s icing colors. I need blue, green, and yellow! :D I’m also interested in trying different wool washes, since I’ve only ever used Eucalan and random dish soaps.

* What fibers are you absolutely dying to get your hands on?

Hmmm. Angelina (for blending)! Also Blue-Faced Leicester or Pygora, neither of which I've tried yet, and I've been drooling over JJFarms's stuff on eBay, and all the custom batts I keep seeing on Etsy and eBay. I also always like really nice clean Columbia, light-colored blanket alpaca, washed Corriedale, and any of the wild silks aside from tussah and muga. I've never spun superwash or most of the exotics like guanaco or camel or ox down, so I’d be happy to try those.

* Which fibers do you absolutely not want to work with?

I'm allergic to angora, and I prefer not to use bombyx silk.

* Do you prefer natural color fibers or pre-dyed fibers?

I like both. :D

* What are your dye and color preferences?

I have no preference on dye type as long as it's colorfast, except that I think natural dyes are super-neato. My favorite colors are blues and greens (deep colors, bright colors, and light colors, not so much duller or muted colors), but I also like purples, grays, and white. I particularly like blends with sparkly bits and blends with multiple colors, including non-favorite colors in small amounts.

Thanks, fiber swappy partner! :D

Rhonna's Questionnaire

* What do you use your fiber for? Felting, needle felting, knitting or crocheting, weaving? Spinning, and ultimately knitting or crochet. Some things can be felted (e.g., slippers and bags), but I'd rather use a cheaper commercial wool if I'm going to felt something.

* What kind of spinning do you do or what do you spin for? I started spinning because there were yarns I wanted to use which I couldn't get here, and even if I could find them, I wouldn't find them at a reasonable price. Those yarns are the really soft fibers, such as fine merino, and especially the blends, such as alpaca-silk, or merino-tencel, or simply silks, and anything laceweight. That means that while I'll spin a few things for clothing, most of my spinning goals are for knitting lace, fingering, and sport or DK weights, with heavy emphasis on the first two.

* If you knit, weave, spin, crochet, needle felt, or do other fibery pursuits, how long have you been doing those things? What level of expertise are you at? I grew up with crochet, and consider myself very advanced there. But, I've had to drop most of it because it's harder on my hands. I started knitting about 4 years ago, and consider myself in the intermediate range. I'm not afraid to try things, and I can follow instructions, so I'm fairly convinced that there's not much I cannot do. :-) I just started spinning over the Christmas break, so am totally a greenhorn at it--but it's not stopping me. :-)

* What fibers have you worked with? I've deliberately tried to sample a little of everything, so the list is a bit lengthy given that I've only been doing this for a bit over 4 months: Cormo, Corriedale, Merino, BFL, alpaca, Merino-tencel, Merino-silk, unknown blend (Sheep Shed Studio). In the wings I have: CVM, Falkland, Tussah, Bombyx silk bells, superwash (Sheep Shed), Shetland, Mohair (not kid), Merino-Mohair blend, and an Alpaca-Corriedale blend.

* Which fibers, fiber blends, and types of fibers do you prefer? Since I'm sensitive to wools and I'm spinning the yarns I can't get, I prefer the fine wools and softer blends. Any of the next-to-skin fibers, in other words. Some folks hate slippery fibers, but I'm finding that I actually like them.

* Are you interested in working with raw fleece? If so, what type? Actually, yes, but only if it's very very clean since I don't have facilities or a washing machine for handling it, and only if it's very very fine or soft. This, however, is something I'd like to try *eventually.* At the moment, I really am content to work with the commercial tops, particularly since I'll soon be able to do my own blends.

* What fibery tools do you currently have (e.g., spinning wheels, drop spindles, combs, cards, etc.)? A Majacraft Rose spinning wheel. Spindles include a .7 Bosworth mini, 1.8 Cascabeles, 2.1 plying spindle from Tracy Eichheim, plus a 1.0 from him enroute, and a 1.4 Turkish from Wanda and Ed Jenkins enroute. I cannot use hand cards or combs, so just splurged on a Strauch Petite drum carder, also enroute. I also have a ball winder and a skein winder.

* Do you crave any tools, books, or videos? I think I'm ok on this front. I have a fair amount of what I want, and I don't think I need any more tools.

* What fibers are you absolutely dying to get your hands on? Any of the fine fibers, or fibers under 25 microns. I'm easy here. And of course, since I'm a newbie, I'm interested in trying nearly everything just to see what it does or how it handles.

* Which fibers do you absolutely not want to work with? Not the coarse or medium-coarse fibers since I've no idea what I'd do with the final product. A good rule for me is to keep it under 25 microns.

* Do you prefer natural color fibers or pre-dyed fibers? Both. :-) I have some oatmeal BFL which is beautiful, and I like browns, but obviously whites and creams are more flexible and can be dyed. However, I love some of the vibrant space-dyed and multicolor fibers, and am experimenting with everything.

* What are your dye and color preferences? I'm happy with almost all colors, except large quantities of yellow and orange, but the reality is that most of what I spin isn't going to end up with me. :-) So, all colors are viable (except solid yellow/orange); it will eventually find a home. My own personal preferences are both earth and jewel tones, or colors that have depth. I've begun dyeing my own using Jacquard acid dyes and have a stock of the 6 basic colors.

* Any allergies or things your pal should be aware of? I can't handle smoke. I'm fine with the lavender and cedar many people and shops store with their fibers to keep away the moths. No worries.

I do blog my spinning efforts. There's a "Spinning Gallery" on the blog, as well as my own form of note-taking for each venture. If you're trying to figure out where I'm at in the process, that's a good starting place since it displays goofs as well as successes. :-)

*Do you have a blog? Yep. It's here: http://rhonna.net