Fiber Femmes Geek questionnaire

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1. Do you raise fiber, animals or plant, or are a fiber user only? If you raise animals/plants...what do you raise?

I have kept angora rabbits for twenty years. Would love to expand my fibre animals to sheep or an alpaca but finances dictate no at the moment.

2. What's your favorite fiber & why? Which fiber do you like the least & why?

Angora is my favourite fibre as it is so silky and soft. I haven't found a fibre I dislike using because I haven't really explored all the possibilities.

3. What's your worst habit relating to your fiber?

I keep buying in more fleeces than I can possible spin and they sit in the corner of the spare room looking reproachful.

4. In what ways does your fiber habit make you a better person?

I think working with natural fibres makes you more aware of nature and the environment. Also just sitting spinning calms the spirit.

5. How would your life be different if you had to give up fiber?

It would be quite depressing and a bit purposeless.

6. What tools, yarns, books or gadgets can't you live without?

My traveler spinning wheel is the most important piece of equipment I own.

7. What was your first fiber project?

I remember my mother teaching me to knit a scarf when I was a small child. Like Topsy it "growed" into this long ratty bottle green and orange monstrosity.

8. Do you have any fiber mentors? Who are they and why?

My sister Carolyn who taught me to spin and also Heather Kearins of The Shearing Shed in Waitomo.

9. Are you a member of any guilds? If so, which one(s)?

I belong to Creative Fibre (a national group of spinners and weavers) here in NZ.

10. What's the most exciting fiber project you've undertaken?

I want to take up knitting again which will mean going back to basics as it's been so long since I last held a pair of needles. So the most exciting project is the one I am yet to undertake.

11. How many people have you mentored? In which fiber arts?

None- I do however try to educate people to be less afraid to use angora. It's had such a bad rap here in New Zealand because a lot of substandard fibre has been sold.

12. Do you consider fiber crafts to be functional or artistic?

Both.

13. What, mainly, do you make? Do you keep, or give away, most of your projects?

I mainly spin yarn for sale.

14. Are fiber crafts an avocation or vocation for you?

It's strange but had it not been for my rabbits I would never have thought of learning to spin. However I guess the crafts have become a vocation and I genuinely want to improve at what I do.

15. How many people are you committed to being a mentor for in 2007?

I wouldn't be so cheeky to suggest I could mentor anyone as I really know so little!