Craft Fair

One of the towns closest to me is hosting a craft fair.  They want the focus to be on the craft and demonstrating how to do it, instead of filling space with pampered chef stalls.  There is nothing wrong with Pampered Chef, but many craft fairs get overrun by vendors selling items they had no hand in making which makes people not want to attend. 
This craft fair will have polymer clay jewelry and demonstrations on how to make it, stained glass with some demos, hardinger lace, rose malling, many other artisans, and it will also have me.  I am trying to work out space.  I have not been able to pin down what size space I will have, but, for sure I will bring my 2 spinning wheels.  I will have the Reeves wheel for me to demo and the Joy for others to try out.  My mother is learning how to use the drop spindle, so she will be there showing people how to spin with that.  We will have 13 drop spindles for sale and for demonstrating.  I also plan on having a basket of Suffolk wool and a pair of hand cards for children to sit and card, but that will depend on the space I have. 
The other things I want to have, but I am not sure there will be space is my drum carder.  My 2 youngest children know how to work it and would prepare special batts for people who want to try their hand at combining colors and fibers.  I also want to bring my English Combs that I would bring our at the top of the hour to demonstrate how to comb fiber.  They are too scary of a tool to leave out. 
We will also have fiber, yarn, pelts, and noils for sale along with the spindles.

This is quite a project.  I have never done this before, but I think it is a great opportunity to get people interested in spinning and wool.  I have a ton of prep to do to get ready.  I don't think I have enough fiber or knit items for display.  I am looking forward to it and apprehensive because this is not only new to me, but, also to the people who are putting this on.

Wool

Recently I purchased some wool from etsy.  It was a 10 pack of 1 ounce each from different breeds of sheep.  There was a discussion on ravelry about how much you can spin from 800 grams of wool and I weighed in on the different masses of wool and that it would be impossible for anyone to estimate how much a perfect stranger who is not an experienced spinner would be able to spin from 800 grams and it would be impossible to judge for even me (I tend to know how much yardage I get from merino) because the person in question did not know the breed of sheep.  Some people did not think the breed would make any difference, so here is a photo of 4 of the tops I received to illustrate this fact.

From left to right we have one ounce each of: Shetland, Merino, Falkland, and Gotland.
There are other properties of these wools that will determine how much yardage you can obtain.  The most yardage will be from the merino because it will spin up the finest and next would be the Falkland.  The Shetland is very airy but also coarse, so it would be third and make a nice woolen yarn.  It too can be spun pretty fine.  Now the Gotland is very dense.  Trust me, it has the same mass as the Shetland.  The gotland can be spun fine if you have patience, but it will want to be spun thicker than any of the others and because of the density, there just is not enough fiber, no matter how fine, to come close to the merino.  I also doubt it would be even 2/3 of the Shetland yardage.
Having never worked with the Gotland, I would guess that it would make a great carpet yarn.  It appears to have a very long staple (length of the individual fibers) and very little crimp.

New Wheel

I stopped off at a semi local spinnery this weekend to pick up a used Schacht-Reeves 30" wheel in Ash.  I had been looking for one and since this one was barley used, less than a year old, it was perfect. 

I am amazed at how nice the singles are turning out.  The extra twist this wheel adds makes a much nicer lace than my Joy.

I still have my Joy, though.  It is a great wheel for travelling and it really does make a nice yarn, but this is so much nicer.