Shopping

I have been doing quite well on eBay of late - selling, that is. The time has seemed right for de-cluttering, divesting myself of some of the books and equipment that have served their purpose in the past but are now languishing in dark corners. I've raised a surprisingly tidy sum.

So - in the past twenty four hours, I have gone loopy and spent all of it.

A while back, I made a private sale and got rid of my Barnett drum carder. Now, these UK-made machines are superbly well constructed and functional, but to my way of thinking designed for carding fleece - the carding cloth is quite coarse. I couldn't do what I wanted to do, which was to make blends, luxury fibres or colours. So, Barnett, bye bye. What I needed, I said, was a Pat Green carder of some description. But as far as I know, there is no-one in the UK who deals in them now - there used to be, but no longer, sadly. But, occasionally, apparently, they come up second hand, and first I saw one on the Loom Exchange, but that went to someone else. Then, a few days ago, one appeared on eBay. I got lucky! I don't know which model it is, indeed, it may be one that is no longer made, but it appears to be in reasonable nick, and although it was an alarming bid to make for one of my impoverished means, it was, I think, not a bad price all things considered. I'm looking forward to it arriving and having a play.

So, today we go to Manchester for one of our occasional shopping forays. I'm kind of starting to look for something to wear to a wedding in July, and also for one or two things to spice up the summer wardrobe before going to France. OK, so lets be totally upfront about this - I like clothes. I consider those who say that it doesn't matter what they wear as long as they are clean, decent and if appropriate, warm, have a gene missing. Not only do I like clothes, but I like clothes shopping - well, in moderation anyway, my tolerance for cities, shops and all that goes with same is rather limited. But, guess what, I got lucky again - a really fabbo blue linen ankle length semi-fitted dress, sleeves just the right length, great neckline. What is even better is that the collection of lime green beads that is going to be a stunning neck piece at some point quite soon will go very well, the colours will be great together.

I did, over a rather nice Italian lunch, very nearly get the DSM to give me his Pumpkin fibre, but I backed off at the last minute, it seemed a bit mean. H'mm. Maybe I should reconsider that?

Now then, sometime last night, whilst not sleeping all that well (please do not let this become the start of a trend again, it is so tedious!) it occurred to me that while rabbiting on about dyeing the silk and soy silk I may be implying that I am not au fait with natural dyeing. Which is not, of course, the case. Whilst I can throw wool in and out of dyepots, or discourse upon the history until my audiences' eyes bulge and their ears bleed, what I have not done is much dyeing of silk, and none at all using soy silk. Hence all the experimentation. And what is more, I spent a small part of my non-sleeping time fluffing up the lac disaster, and it is going to be usable, if I card it - it looks much better fluffed up!

So, at this point I am knackered and my fingers are not obeying my brain necessitating much backing and filling on the keyboard, so I shall shut up. The rumour from downstairs is that our telly - or rather, the signal to same - is dead. Which means no Dr Who, and therefore I am cross....booze, give me booze.....


gw