fibergarden

Sorry for the long silence, folks. Just writing now to flash my new stash, and I’ll play catch-up later on the subjects of life and all the stuff that’s kept me from blogging for months.

So yesterday, on a ridiculously hot day, our little family made a trip into NYC and headed to the Central Park Zoo. It’s really my favorite zoo–quite small–with some fun animals and a nice petting zoo, as well as some really nice plantings–which, quite frankly, I enjoy more than the animals, but that’s my horticulturist self speaking Of course, little girls are generally more enamored with sea lions at feeding time than gorgeous Oak Leaf Hydrangea in blushing bloom, but she’ll learn to love both in time.

So anyhow, after torturing this large 23 weeks preggo woman in the sweltering heat as we watched polar bears sweat and ice cream melt faster than we could eat it, my wonderful Husband ‘enabled’ me to venture onto the 8th floor of a building in Midtown Manhattan, to a non-descript brushed stainless steel door, behind which lurked the tempting showroom of habu textiles, a Japanese specialty yarn shop I’ve been aching to see in person. Dear Craig patiently assisted while little A sorted through some sale yarns neatly stacked in baskets on the floor in the main room, and I oohed and aahed in the tiny room that held the tempting display of sample skeins. After not too long and nearly $200 later, I ended up with a gorgeous stash of yarn and threads to fondle and use for many months ahead:

I admit that the photo doesn’t look huge for the money spent, but as plying thread for my handspun (which was my goal), it should last me quite a while. The yardage here is just massive…probably several thousands of yards in total. The stash includes gorgeous white India Silk, ‘fique’ yarn (pineapple fiber), paper/nlyon moire, assorted cotton and linen tapes and yarns, several cones of tsumugi silk in assorted colors (my favorite textured plying thread so far), a fantastic thin white-ish silk with fiddlehead fern ‘cotton’ stuck in it, rough and rustic Kenaf fiber, a natural dark brown thin silk called Taira, and a bunch of small miscellaneous yarn remnants. I also bought a few oddities that I hope to be able to work with–some hemp bark, a bag of Curicura silk cocoons in a golden honey color, and a very cool vintage wooden spool with Chinese characters on it, that Hubby wanted (how could I refuse after he indulged me like this?). The spool is a nice curiosity and will also make a good niddy noddy for tiny skeins now and then…

After spending nearly $200 , I can honestly breathe a sigh of relief that I’m not much of a knitter or weaver yet, or the possibilities here would have been endless, I’m sure. I tend to lean toward very rustic materials, so I barely scratched the surface of what’s available there, despite the small size of their showroom…aahhhhhh, habu. If you ever get a chance to go there, don’t pass it up! I can’t wait to use some of this stunning fiber. Keep an eye on my web site as it’ll start appearing in my handspun over the next few weeks!