Anyway, the purpose was to find some lovely pieces to bring to the stash lounge for the 2012 Knitter's Review Retreat. From what I gather, you bring in your lovelies and take someones lovelies home with you without money exchanging hands. Sounds like fun and I filled a bag with odds and ends that should make someone happy. Overall I made progress but I came across some shame fiber:
This is otherwise known as Mystery Fiber #5 and has the claim to fame as not only being the oldest fiber in my stash but the one that I got ripped off on. When I was a new spinner I paid $100 for this without having the slightest clue what it was. Also, the LYS I bought it from was brand new and probably didn't think to ask me if I knew what it was. The receipt just says "unspun" - so helpful, right?
I did a burn test and believe it's either nylon or polyester. The ladies at the Ithaca ROC day last year confirmed that it's synthetic and most likely nylon. I even tried to spin it by itself and disaster followed because of the extremely short fibers.
After cleaning out my stash last year I decided to throw it away. One nagging thing kept me from doing that. I had met the lady who owns the Salt City Fiber Works and she gave me a tour of her operations this past summer. If anyone could save this fiber it would be her. I called and brought it down to see what she thought. She didn't know what it was either other than it's definitely synthetic (it doesn't behave like typical nylon and the blue color is odd) but suggested blending it with some Finn wool in a gorgeous dark charcoal grey/black color. We decided on a blend of about 20% mystery fiber and 80% Finn and it should be done in about a week.
I'll have just under 4 pounds of fiber coming my way soon. Let's just hope it turns out to be awesome fiber and I can eventually find room to store it until it can be spun up!
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