Beautiful fabrics are what attracted me to weaving. Then, years later, when I saw the yarns that I could buy, cones of silk, wool, rayon, cotton, I was hooked. Then, when I realized I could buy MILL ENDS, I was obsessed! A yarn guy I know would call me from North Carolina; 'I got a nice bunch a woolen stuff 'herea fow yo' he would drawl. 'An, if ya take it all, I give you a rale good praaaice'. So the next week, UPS pulls up and unloads ten large, worn, cardboard boxes. 500 pounds. I tried to hide it in the garage. No luck. When Mr. got home, he commented 'What the hell is in the driveway?' He had to find a way to fit the boxes in the garage because I was too exhausted from opening them up and rolling around in the yarn. It was heavenly.

Joann wove this lovely hounds tooth of two shades of silk and rayon blend singles, sort of slubby, great luster and amazing drape. The yarn she used is among the last cones of that first haul. My goal was to use (sell, or give away, enough to make room for more!

So, the search is on!


The accumulation of raw wool is an obsession, too. The fleece right off a sheep, the smell of it, the fresh cut end so clean and shiny, it just thrills me. We have a lot of fleece. Probably close to 1000 pounds now. We keep buying it, because we love to wash it and dye it and card it. Very rarely, we sell a raw one, more because we forget to offer them for sale. Soon, our shipment of Gotland will arrive in the US. We are getting 130 or so pounds. It is so beautiful; shades of silver, lustrous, silky. We can hardly wait. We are keeping a few or more for ourselves! Then when they are gone, we will buy more, and so on and so on. I have four fleeces in my car, waiting for the opportunity to hide them somewhere. For a short time, whenever I asked my husband if it was all right with him if I bought another sheep, he'd ask why I wanted it and the answer was always because I wanted the fleece. His reply was to just buy the fleece, then. Since the last big fleece purchase however, he said maybe I should get the sheep after all....