Batts

Yesterday, I got the chance to play with Rachel's drum carder and help her get ready for the Strange Folk Festival.

For four hours, Ann and I took turns picking color and embellishment combinations. Then Ann loosened the roving while I turned the drum and comb, comb, comb, combed.

We even got out the color wheel now and then to double check our instincts.

Unlike Rachel and Ann, I don't spin. For me, each step in the dying process seems enough. I look at a braid of dyed roving and think it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I firmly believe that it's perfect just the way it is.

Then we card the roving, and it becomes the most beautiful batt I've ever seen. I love the way the colors lie like watercolors or the endpapers on an ancient book. I can't imagine anyone destroying such perfection by spinning.

Then they spin the roving and I think the yarn is the most beautiful handspun I've ever seen. If I spun, I would just have piles and piles of yarn and never be able to bring myself to knit with it.

Hell, who am I kidding?

I already have that last problem, even without dying or spinning.