Saturday, February 25, 2012

Mountain Goat

Last summer, my friend Sacha did some traveling, hiking, camping etc. in the U.S. Rockies. On one of her hikes, she came upon a little clump of fiber that had shed from a Mountain Goat. Knowing I have a thing for fiber, she brought it back to show me and let me keep a little. Holding it in my fingers, it was fun to imagine the life of the goat who had worn the fiber, scampering over mountain sides, doing things that wild goats do. It was extremely soft, and I could imagine that if I were living off the land as an early human, it was a substance I would seek out and use for clothing and warmth.

I kept twisting it in my fingers, and decided it would be fun to try to spin some into a bit of string. I removed some of the debris that had collected in it, carded it a little with some hand carders, then spun it on my spinning wheel. I then Navajo plied it (a technique that allows you to ply from a single strand instead of two), and voila, I'd made about 10 inches of Mountain Goat yarn. I decided to memorialize it by attaching it to a felted pin cushion I had made in the shape of a mountain. I even made a little mountain goat with pin legs to live on top of the mountain.

I was feeling lazy, and wasn't really sure how I'd attached them, so didn't give him any horns. Poor little hornless Mountain Goat.

I attached the bit of Mountain Goat yarn with a needle felting tool in a spiral around the mountain and outlined the snow cap. I'd originally made the pin cushion to give to Sacha as a little Christmas present, but it wasn't quite finished in time. Now that it had her Mountain Goat yarn attached to it, I knew of all people, she would appreciate it most, and just gave it to her as a random, occasion-less present. The best kind of present to get, in my opinion!

4 comments:

  1. Even though he is hornless, he has a smile on his face! Well done!

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    1. Thank you, Laura. Yeah, I guess he doesn't seem to mind being hornless. Although I was thinking after the fact, I could have put two small quilting pins in - that might have looked like horns (or maybe antennae...)

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  2. I don't even sew and I want one of those.

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    1. Let me know when you are stateside again and your wish could be granted...

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