As much as I’d like to encourage you to restrain yourself in the whole “consumer” thing that the Holiday season brings, I’m a businessperson - so in good conscience, I can’t do that. However, what I can do is urge you to:
BUY HANDMADE
BUY LOCAL
and/or BUY AS GREEN AS POSSIBLE.
Of course, I always recommend my fellow sellers at Etsy.com for your handmade needs. Lots of Etsy sellers are having great sales and promotions for the Season, and I am no exception. My sale?
Starting Nov 27th @ 12midnight EST until 6am EST Dec 2nd, free shipping!
You don’t have to do a thing, just load up your cart and forget about any shipping costs. How easy!
Look for some recommendations about other favoured sellers and items coming up soon, as well as what I’m doing to make this Holiday a green, festive one.
edited to add - Treehugger has a good piece about Buy Nothing Day and why it has a hollow ring this year: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/11/buy-nothing-day-2008.php
Some of my handspun, in the garden.
People have been asking me a lot of questions about spinning lately, and it thrills me to no end to talk about my fiber obsession and how I came to be a spinner… then, if I’m lucky, I get to teach *them* how to spin, too!
The recent trend for me has been to take my wheel out and let people play on it -getting a feel for how the wool runs through the hands, feeling what fiber staple is and how it effects spinning, discovering the sheer joy that you are, indeed, making actual YARN! How delightful it is to watch their faces light up as it dawns on them that they are connecting with a practice that is practically as old as the human race.
Needless to say, that is one huge reason why I spin… I came to the art in my search for a hobby that would relax me and allow me to touch and use wonderful-feeling tools and materials. I’d already become a knitter for the same reasons, and it seemed a natural extension to learn to make the beautiful and useful yarns that cost so much and were so difficult to find in my area. Little did I know how addicted I would become to this ancient practice!
One of the best places I’ve found to get the fiber that I make my lovely creations from is, of course, on Etsy. I would easily recommend Blonde Chicken Boutique, Cloudlover69.etsy.com, and Hobbledehoy.etsy.com for high quality fibers and batts in unusual and gorgeous colourways!
Of course, I couldn’t dare close this without mentioning that I list my own hand spun yarn in my Etsy shop… ahem. 
Here it is! I’ve *finally* migrated the blog - and the rest of the website - over to WordPress, and I couldn’t be happier! You’ll probably see some things shuffling around as I straighten things up and find the best places for all my links and other goodies… if you have any suggestions or comments, you know that I welcome them happily!
I know you must be wondering what I’ve been up to during my radio silence, so let me tell you about the fabulous time I had this past weekend!
I ventured up the mountains and to the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair - a HUGE gathering of fiber lovers and vendors - and oh, did I load up on delicious fiber to fondle and love and spin into lovely yarn. I managed to find a nice, large bag of eco-spun, which is a fiber made from recycled bottles. That’s begging to be blended into some hand-carded batts, oh yes. There was some wool/seacell blend roving, and some sparkly Angelina, and the best of all… my delightful Mother-In-Law treated me to some tusshah silk and a lightweight spindle on which to spin it. Oh, joy of joys, this silk is so amazing. I can’t wait to try my hand at it, although I must admit some fear that I might botch it. Meep!
I also ran into Tara of Blonde Chicken Boutique - and she had the Louet hand cards with her that I’d been waiting for, stashed away in her bag and ready to go home with me! You see, I have these two big bags of llama fiber sitting here, and they’ve been waiting on me to get some carders so that I can spin them… now I can, thanks to Tara! She was also kind enough to gift me with some of the lovely, lanolin-heavy yellow and orangey fiber that matches some yarn that I recently bought from her at Craft Attack. How sweet! I really can’t say enough good things about Tara, and I urge everyone to go buy some of her eco-friendly yarns and fibers right now. 
SAFF was a total success. I’m sure you’ll see more of the goodies that I brought home as I spin it up and either knit it or sell it. Yay, fiber!
