It's Not Work

Many times, at previous employers, we would often get dragged into yet another program-of-the-day, leadership workshop, attitude adjustment workshop, time management, aren't-we-wonderful-presentation, etc.  You see, training was important, didn't matter what the training was for, just that you went.  At many of those, I would hear something along the lines of "If you love your work, it's not work anymore."  Right.  Are they on crack?  Work isn't called work because it's fun, but because it's something you have to do.  It's part of being grown-up and self-supporting.

Over the past few weeks, I have found that those "experts" weren't on anything.  If you love what you do, it's not work anymore.  Really!  I can't wait to get out to my garage and mess with fiber.  Doesn't matter to me if it's mine or a customer's.  All of it makes me happy.

If it's a fleece that I've picked out for either it's good qualities or it's bad qualities, I'm really into seeing what it becomes on it's way out of the carder.  Yes, in addition to some truly lovely fleeces in my stash, I deliberately got some undesireable ones to practice on.  Like this one...dirty, stained tips, lots of VM, old, dry and a fine wool.  It's surprising how nice the finished roving is...still has some VM but suitable for some projects (maybe one of those Shepherd's Rugs?).

Customer's fibers are even more fun in a way...they're full of surprises...I just don't know what I'm going to find when I open up that bag.  These surprises run the range from premium fiber to lower quality, strong fleeces to weak ones (that break),  fine fiber to coarse, lots of VM to none at all, natural colors to wildly dyed and sometimes all in one bag.

This is a customer's fleece after being picked.  Next time I'll put something in there for scale.  Believe you me, 5 pounds of wool fluffs an amazing amount!  That pile is about 5 feet x 6 feet x 2-1/2 feet deep.  This was 2 different gray wools blended in the picker, then carded; the roving is really nice.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the next bag contains...bring it on!