I suffer from LOFAD*

Yes, I suffer from a disorder that thousands of fiber enthusiasts around the world have been recently diagnosed with - Lack of Fiber Anxiety Disorder* aka LOFAD. You know who you are. The worst afflicted are the ones who think that sock yarn doesn't count. It grips you when you least expect it, causing one to hemorrhage cash for no rational reason and hide fiber in boxes, under beds and in the dark corners of closets. To date, there is no cure.

Severe LOFAD sufferers usually have plenty of fiber in their lives. I give you exhibit A.



This is most of the yarn and spinning fiber in my knitting room. Note the over abundance of fibers especially the spinning fiber on the bottom shelves.



Check out the baskets that contain several pounds of washed fleece waiting to be carded. You can't even see that 5 lb bag of llama that is lost somewhere in the garage.



And yet for some reason, I had a panic attack over some Finnsheep. A week or so ago, I thought that I'd washed the last of the fleece that I bought a couple of years ago. So I ordered some commercial Finn top thinking that it would be wonderful to just spin it without having to wash it, pick it, card it, yadda yadda yadda. I've waxed poetic about the wonders of Finn before and couldn't wait to just spin this ethereal stuff. But when the commercial Finn arrived, I realized quickly that all Finn is NOT created the same. Yes, its very nice stuff but its. not. the. same.

Panic set in. I started gasping for air. What would I do if I didn't have some flurfy Finn to spin this year? I immediately started combing the internets to see if I could locate a fleece. Ack! Most of the fleece for 2007 has already been claimed. It seems that everyone loves Finn as much as I do. It didn't matter that I don't NEED more fiber. I couldn't even get past the panic. A couple of hours later, I finally found some online and faster than Brangelina can adopt another child, I bought a Finn lamb fleece and its due to arrive any day. Crisis narrowly averted. All is right with the world again.

And then I found the rest of the Finn fleece that I thought was all gone.



And there's quite a bit left. Double crap in a can! This just illustrates how severe LOFAD can get the best of you. Now I have even more fleece coming and there aren't enough hours in the day to wash and spin all of this stuff. I know I need help and trust me, I'm trying to stop but its so hard. I've knit most everything I've shown you so far this year from the stash so I AM working through it.

In the meantime, my answer for LOFAD is to give some of my over abundance away. I gave a bunch away to Thing 1's class this week. They worked hard for it. I did a spinning demo for his class and then gave them CD spindles that King Thing and I made. And all nine of his 14 year old classmates learned how spin. ALL. OF. THEM. It brought tears to my eyes. How can you not give kids your fiber when they do something magical like that?

Here's what I've spun up so far this year and some of these kiddies (and many others who haven't even been spun yet) will find new homes with some of YOU!!!



More detailed swag info will be revealed later this week (even if it kills me. I hate paperwork and that's what I'm working on right now related to this project).

And some of the fiber is intended for charitable endeavors. I can at least use my knitting and spinning powers to heal and not to harm, right?

*** ETA: BTW, I've suddenly lost the ability to reply directly to your comments. They come to me by email but your return email addy is "hidden". So please know that I read your comments and truly enjoy them but simply can't jot a quick note back to you. Hopefully Blogger will fix this bug sooner than later.