This stuff is OMG soft! It's so lovely to touch, you just want to run your hands through it and pet it for hours.
As I said, it's a very short stapled fiber and it's difficult to get the hang of spinning it. It wants to be spun quick and fairly tight so that the fibers will stay together and not send your spindle flying across the floor. Go ahead, ask me how I know. :) I sent that sucker to the floor quite a few times before I got it under control.
I've thrown a penny in the pic to give a reference to how fine I've managed to get the singles to be. I don't normally spin my singles this thin and I'm quite proud of it.
I'm always amazed when I go from using a wheel to a spindle at how much more I learn about the fibers that I'm working with. A spindle is more intimate, you work slower and you can stretch thin or bulk the fiber up and generally just "play" with it more. I think that when working with a new fiber, like I am with the Camel down, it's important to start with a spindle to really learn how that fiber wants to be handled.
Did I mention that using a spindle, at least for me, is a much slower process? Everything that you see on the spindle above? Yeah, that's two hours worth of work. At this rate it will take the next twelve years of my life to finish it.
In reference to yesterday's post: No tenant excitement for me today, another family member was there to witness the eviction. Ultimately nothing happened. They're out, house is still standing, end of story. :)
