Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Today I went shopping

I was in a yarn acquisition mood today, I've been feeling this way for a week.

So I went to Wilde Bros. a nearby spinning mill and bought a little bit of wool./ 8 lbs.

I had the brilliant idea that the 2-ply rug yarn would work in my machine (secret I'm working on some rugs) Ha, the texture was all wrong for the machine, not enough give and too bulky. --------I almost said too big and hard.

I like the roughness of the wool. So some type of hand knit will come out of this.

I was really hoping that the local would work. I get tired of ordering the jagger spun from maine all of the time.

This place had tons of roving and if I were a spinner I would have been tempted.

It was a very interesting, but sad place. Two buildings, the 1st one receives the wool, washes, cards, dyes(I think), and then the roving is sent to the second building were there are about uhm... I don't know it was one large room of industrial spinning machines. after the spinning it's skeined and sent to the next room for coning and then packed and shipped. The sad thing about Wilde's is that they are the last mill in Manayunk, pa. and they have their building up for sale and the equipment, too because they're closing down after 150 years of being a family business. They say they just can't produce cheaply enough to really compete.

I wanted to take over the factory and try to figure out if there wasn't some way to keep this last historical mill alive in Philadelphia. Just my craziness.
...an aside.....
Since being on Ravelry I've noticed some new readers.
Don't be shy, please leave comments.

2 comments:

nuttnbunny said...

Found you via Ravelry. Wish I could see that Philly mill. Wish I could help them too.

So happy to have found your work!

MsAmpuTeeHee said...

"a little bit of wool./ 8 lbs."
hahahaha
Dude, we should save the mill. This community has to be big enough to pull it off.