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today I learned that "knitting knobby" and "niddy-noddy" are spelt differently
I went to the Sheep and Wool Festival today, in the pouring rain!
Partly: I've been wanting to go for years, but it's always FCBD/Flea Market weekend. Partly I wanted to buy things/learn things for my spinning wheel.
(Did I mention I have a spinning wheel now? It was disassembled in my aunt's basement, it looks like this right now:
I am bribing myself by saying that once I get to the 740s in the book sorting project, I get to pause to try to get the spinning wheel working.)
Unfortunately, due to a bad map, I entirely missed the building where the demos were, so I mostly only wandered around the vendors' tables.
I bought a new drive band for the wheel, some roving recommended for a beginning wheel-spinner (along with the warning that learning on a 19th-century flax wheel is like learning to drive on an antique Lamborghini - I mentioned my spinning wheel situation to several vendors who asked what I was looking for, and I could never tell what their actual feelings were about the situation. But I am emotionally attached to this one from childhood so I'm probably stuck with it.)
I also bought a new, slimmer shuttle for card weaving (And shopped for inklette looms, but didn't buy one - there were surprisingly few vendors who had much stuff at all related to card/tablet/lap/tape loom weaving. Also surprisingly few people selling wool cloth! My previous experience with fairs like this has all been SCA, so it was interesting to see the differences in emphasis. Mostly it comes down to I feel like the SCA fiber arts people - for all that the entirely thing is extravagantly impractical - are more focused on... making a useful thing? You learn narrow-work weaving because you want to be able to make trim and ribbons and strapping and selvages, you learn drop-spinning because you want to be able to do something useful with your hands at the fire and you want to learn how to turn fleece into cloth, you learn to weave vadmal so you'll have cloth to make leg-wraps out of, etc. The 'making something beautiful' is the byproduct, not the goal. Or maybe that's just me. IDK. I didn't see a single cloak pin at the thing that I'd trust to hold my cloak together for a full day's hiking either, although tbf they are also hard to come by at SCA events. I always sort of feel like a strange outsider at Yarn People gatherings even though I've been crocheting and knitting since long before it was cool - probably because I have been doing it since long before it was cool, back when it was the sole province of Aunts, not Yarn People.)
Anyway, just for fun, here is a list of fiber crafts
- processing raw fiber - have two small fleeces, have not dared do anything with them yet
- spinning on a hand spindle - can do, need more practice, have not yet dared to use my handspun for anything.
- spinning on a wheel - hope to learn soon
- needlefelting - made cats! out of cat!
- wet felting - have done a little, have also done accidentally
- rope making/plying - would like to learn
- lashing/rigging/knot-tying - have done a little, would like to practice more.
- netting - made a netted bag, have basics down
- macrame - ehhh, dunno if I care?
- fingerloop braiding - can do, regularly use in daily life when I have a cordage emergency
- kumihimo braiding - can do a few patterns, need better tools
- assorted other braiding/cord-making as learned by preadolescent girls - can do lucet cord, knitting knobby, square cord, a few other kinds, probably some I have forgotten.
- sprang - took a class, would love to get better
- naalbinding/needlebinding - can do a few stiches, have done hat and socks and most of a mitten (can also carve my own needles for it)
- knitting - can do basics, have made 1.3 socks and many scarves and hats and etc.
- crochet - can do lots of things
- Tunisian crochet - have done a little
- passementerie, etc - reasonably good with pompoms and tassels and a few other things, can make my own frogs
- lacemaking - only if crochet counts
- basketry - make an Easter basket every year!
- stick weaving/fingerweaving/shedless weaving of assorted kinds - can do
- Card/tablet weaving - can do, although have not tried any fine work yet
- Weaving on a warp-weighted loom or backstrap loom - would love to learn
- Weaving on a proper modern loom - maybe someday? Had a toy one as a kid
- Rug-hooking - ehhh
- Handsewing - good enough that I usually prefer it to machine work
- Embroidery - cross-stitch, needlepoint, various mixed freehand, will be learning couching soon and maybe huck weaving after.
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I like decoration, but I like decoration as - as, like, "I'm making this thing anyway, I might as well make it nice" rather than "I am going to make this useless thing just because I can." Partly because I don't have any place for useless things, there are books there. :P But if I make, say, a pretty belt, that I will actually be able to enjoy.
And I think because SCA crafters come to it from the POV of thinking about how these crafts were important then, and can be used at events now, that fits in better there.
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And the spinning wheels were surprisingly popular as decorative items among the stuff he made even with non-sheep owning relatives, though they did work. Not sure how effectively as he was self-taught both wrt turnery and knowledge about spinning -- he learned farrier as a youth, and then when that turned out to not actually be a secure path because cars happened, he switched to being a well builder, so neither had anything to do with woodworking.
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I have dabbled in much of this, but don't find it satisfying. I have hand-sewn exactly 1 dress for myself to prove I could do it, and I know how to do most of the rest.... but no impetus to put the 10,000 hours in to really be good at any of it.
I think you have it right tho - if you have to do a craft to get a thing you want (that is hard to get otherwise), you'll do it. It's certainly why my Grama sewed and crocheted all her life. She never did it to make something beautiful, but practical, tho much of what she crafted was lovely.
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And I have been known to knit myself a scarf real fast because I forgot to bring one and that was easier than going to the store, and being able to make nice cordage on demand is more useful than I ever expected, and I do really appreciate being able to make quick repairs and alterations to clothes. It's really nice to have it be something I enjoy that is also immediately useful.
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Your crafting skills are wide, varied, and useful. Spinning wheels are such a complex machine, with so many angles and asymmetries.
Re: Life Accomplishment Complete
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Also, I need to google a large portion of your list.
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