Friday, June 01, 2007

More Sam.

I did much better with polyester fibrefill when I stopped insisting on the exact phrase. This source sounds as if it would be fine. But first I’ll hike up to John Lewis and have a look.

Meg W. advises strongly in favour of wool. I could order roving (I'm no spinner myself, alas) but a certain amount of it lies about the fields in clumps, and hangs off the fences – the frugal gather it up and spin it, and I think such wool has a name of its own. It would be fun to stuff Sam with wool from the backs of real Strathardle sheep, but it would probably take more time than I care to spare from my vegetables to collect enough – and it would be filthy. How difficult would it be to wash?

Once, long ago, I saw a woman collecting it, and tried to speak to her. She turned out, however, to be French, and was fearful that I was an irate farmer’s wife telling her to desist. The best I could do was to reassure her and leave her to her occupation.

We’re going to Strathardle next week, I hope, and I will at least consider this solution.

I had hoped that our last visit to London, which seemed long and strenuous, would quench my husband’s enthusiasm for exhibitions until the autumn, but alas, no: we are going south again at the end of June.

My haircut was a success, unlike poor Annie's. I shouldn’t have let it get so long.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:32 AM

    Jean, roving wouold certainly work but it might make the toy very heavy-perhaps too unfamiliar for your Strathardle judges!
    The makers of Waldorf dolls stuff them with roving, I think. The dolls then feel warm and comfortingly dense to the touch.

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  2. Anonymous9:25 AM

    I like to use roving as a stuffing for my knitted cushion covers - the yarn is 100% wool so a wool stuffing just seems that much more authentic - and I like the smell and the feel of roving.

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  3. Anonymous12:04 PM

    Wool roving spinners use is usually already processed and clean (at least, on this side of the Pond). Fleece, on the other hand, is what is hanging about after being sheared from the sheep and requires scouring and processing to remove the VM. I meant to use the already clean roving for the stuffing or wool batts, which have been nicely cleaned and then ran through a carding machine to make them into nice flat batts, like the ones you see used to line quilts. You can use handsful of the batts to stuff just as you would polyester. Maybe that's an American English and British English language usage difference there. The wool batts/stuffing here that I'm used to are slightly more dense than the polyester but do feel more natural somehow. And I do like the feel and smell of my already-processed Blue Faced Leicester roving. I really didn't mean to confuse you with that.

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  4. Gee - I just searched for toy stuffing in the UK there are loads of hits.

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