then plied to suit for knitting or tapestry ,
has been perfectly satisfactory for years.
Now, however, it seems lumpy, thick and inconsistent.
bring all my attention to the drafting triangle
and try to produce a yarn that glides through both needle's eye and fabric.
which was the case with the exhaust baths of last week's lichen experiments,
But it seems to me that one of the great thrills of being alive
is getting to change your mind.
The batts turned out fine.
the wool (once dry), was ready to attenuate and spin
to whatever size my kuchulu and I thought we could make.
This was so thrilling that I dumped the remaining lichen liquor into the pot
and threw in some uncarded but clean white fleece (in net bags this time)
to suck up whatever color remained.
but happily that is the kind of thing I know how to fix.

I'm a bit of a stickler for well prepared fiber.
Indeed, it usually works out the best if I do all of my preparation for not only can I tailor the technique to the yarn I want to spin, but there is also no one to blame but myself if I'm unhappy with the result.
Luckily, I love the whole process
and that is a good thing since
the smooth, fine, heathery yarn I had begun to imagine
depended on a fair bit of it.
I teased and carded each color individually
(every batt twice through my Pat Green Drum Carder ),
then tore the batts into strips and blended them with a third (and sometimes fourth) card.
Bracelet +
cord, leather, cord or strip of worn out sheet in a pinch=
Wrist Distaff (indispensable hand spindle accessory)

was anything but simple:
Hand spun/dyed silk,
card woven into a band,
embellished with a collection of charms from my past
including a tooth to remind me of the days when sawing the jaw off a bear while its fat gently--and stinkily-- rendered into lard on my wood cook stove was all in a day's work.
gets jangled with the fiber and makes a mess of careful carding.
Not worth the effort.
is pursuing the question of what depth of brown I'll get
from this pot of late season black walnuts,
and how much more of that white fleece I should devote to the experiment.
I want to embroider in dark, dark walnut brown.
Including, as you can see below, the Second Palouse Fiber Festival
here in Moscow, June 17 - 19 2016
Turns out I'll not only be teaching at the festival
(Weaving a Bag on a Box and simple Indigo Katazome),
but will also have a show at the The Pritchard Gallery a few blocks away
that opens that very weekend.
Be interesting to see what I'll have made by then,
beyond lots of really fine yarn in a variety of earth tones.