Re: Observations on a Bad Week

Veronique wrote:
> On Mar 27, 9:21 pm, "Kim" <darwinexceptiontakethis...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> wrote:
>
>
> >
> > 7. The next thing I want to try is spinning my own yarn. I figure
> > that there's enough goat and sheep and alpacas and stuff around
> > here that I should be able to find someone willing to give me a
> > little bit of hair to try out. I can't figure out though how sheep
> > fur - which is relatively short - is made into long strands of
> > yarn. I mean, my own hair is pretty long, but I still don't see how
> > twisting a few strands of it together would make a skein of yarn.
> > How exactly does that work?
>
>
>
> Boy, I feel as if I ought to be able to jump right in here with all
> sorts of woolly sheep facts,

Well, yeah, that's what I was hoping....

> and yet all I know is that the strands
> don't have to be very long...I can start to spin a thread from Puff's
> cat fur, which is two to three inches long.

And how exactly do you do that? Because I'm in no short supply of Brewster

hair.

> But also, you don't twist
> "a few" strands together, you twist a whole bunch. And then there's
> something about kemp fibers, which are longer and harder and tend to
> stick out, so I think the qualities of the different fibers affect how
> well it spins.

But what makes it *stay* twisted together? Why doesn't it all fall apart 
when you start to spin it? I mean, taking the Brewster hair as an example
- 
I can sweep up a pile of dog hair - and when I sweep it into a pile, there

is always dog hair flying around the air with just the motion of the broom
- 
it doesn't *stay* piled.

>At any rate, there is a grooming tool for horses that
> is made out of a block of straw: the straw is wetted and twisted into
> a rope, then the rope doubled and woven back in on itself to create a
> brick. I've never been able to make one, and yet I am assured (by
> reading old-fa****oned books about English hunting lore) that strapping
> one's horse with a straw brick is regular and normal.
>
>
> After that, wool (or your own hair) ought to be a breeze. Friend of
> mine cleaned and spun dog hair. Then she died of an aneurysm.

Hmmmmmm......now who do I want to send some dog hair to to get cleaned and

spun.........

-- 
Kim
www.thedarwinexception.wordpress.com
* I'll be so glad when the elections are finally over. That way when
the phone rings I'll know it's just bill collectors. (Jenn McNanna)*