Horror Films and Fiber Fun!

I *love* October. Both TCM and AMC show scary movies. AMC is going all out and showing horror flicks 24 hours a day between Oct 22nd and Oct 31st. They're not always flicks I'm interested in watching, like the Scream series or Dracula 2000, but it's hard to resist the quality movies, like The Exorcist, The Howling and The Fog. I suppose, when you think about it, Halloween, being made in 1978 and being nearly 30 years old, probably qualifies for "vintage" status now. It's hard to believe it's been that long. On Halloween day, all five Halloween movies will be shown in order starting at 10am EDT. By the time I get home, they'll be showing the later ones, which aren't nearly as good as the first one.

For some reason I like to spin while I watch horror movies. I spun up half a bobbin of merino lace-weight yesterday. This is from my stash of merino roving that I pick up at the Amana woolen mill factory store at the Amana Colonies in Iowa. I have probably seven pounds of this stuff. I've been turning it into a light worsted weight 3-ply. I have no idea what I'll do with it, though it would make for a nice Aran sweater. I suppose I should go through my stash and find out how much I've already spun up.

The Spinning Queue
Next will either be the alpaca roving I bought three years ago at the Fleece Fair or the red/gold striped roving called "Autumn Leaves" also purchased at the fleece fair. The alpaca is eight ounces of jet black roving from the Oak Meadow Alpaca Farm. I think it would like to be a lace-weight 2-ply for a shawl or stole. It would certainly make a beautiful Leda's Dream or Moon Dance. I'm leaning toward Moon Dance at the moment.

The Autumn Leaves roving is 70% dyed Border Leicester and 30% natural colored Border Leicester and was produced by Maple Row Stock Farm. It's more of a red-orange than the picture shows. The natural colored wool adds a bit of brown to the mix. I have 8 ounces of this wool. I had purchased a similar colorway the previous year, but it had more brown in it. I actually removed the brown from the roving because I thought it muddied up the color too much. I think I spun a 2-ply DK weight from the previous roving. If I can find that yarn, I'll spin this to match and double my yield.

I also have some red, purple and yellow roving that I really think is quite unattractive. I'm sure at the time I thought it was quite pretty and I had some sort of plan for it, but now I'm not sure what I was thinking. I haven't decided if I'm going to re-card it so the colors are all blended together or even add some cream-colored or gray wool. I'll have to experiment with the drum carder.

Fiber Stash Inventory
Yep, I really need to get the fleeces and roving cataloged and then re-arranged the fiber room. It's time to get it organized so I can use it more readily. There's too much to keep track of in my head. I had started preparing one of the Coopworth fleeces, but I can't remember how much of it was washed or which bins are just picked fleece or washed fleece.