Yesterday four regulars from the Spinners' Group demonstrated wheel and spindle spinning at the Sheep Shearing Shindig at City Farm SLO.
I had hemmed and hawed about going till Roberta asked me to go.
"It will be fun", she said. "Ummm, mmm, okay", I replied.
The night before I gathered my spinning wheel, fiber tools, and wool fiber.
In the morning I made Spam Musubi. We would be there from 11 to 4 pm, we would need good kine snacks.
It was a perfect spring day to be outdoors.
In addition to the four of us two more Guild members showed up with their spinning wheels.
There were six wheels a spinning. We spun beautiful Churro sheep wool processed into pin-drafted roving by Shari McKelvy of Morro Fleece Works. How fortunate we are to have our own local fiber mill.
I spun, talked, spun, talked. A lot of talking to young parents and their young children as well as the young at heart. Everyone - young and old - enjoyed squishing the soft (clean) wool and trying their hand at "carding" the wool.
The fresh singles I spun plied back on themselves beautifully and I handed them out as samples of a 2-ply yarn.
I saw light bulbs go off when people realized what a two-ply yarn meant. Cool beans.
Later, I took a short walk to see the freshly shorn sheep.
It truly is a city farm, a little oasis bordered by Hwy 101, a BMW dealership, and ever-encroaching development.
If there's a 3rd Annual Sheep Shearing Shindig, you can count me in.
