A EULOGY ON ROLAGS

"THE ONLY NORMAL PEOPLE ARE THE ONES YOU DON'T KNOW VERY WELL" (Joe Ancis)



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I love rolags - I love the way they look and the way they feel - and, because I love them so much, I enjoy making them. In the eyes of the other members of our guild (East Herts & West Essex Guild of Weavers, Spinners & Dyers) this makes me a very strange person indeed!





My husband & I have a little game (oh please - put your imagination away!) - I tell him to close his eyes and hold his hands out and then I drop a rolag from about a foot - it's amazing how he often can't feel the rolag land.





With the bamboo rolags that I prepared in Norfolk you could hold 30 in your hand and only feel a whisper of a fibre tickling your skin.





The bamboo rolags were deliciously tactile - soft to handle and with a delicate sheen which intensifies when they're spun.





I recently dyed a mix of Llama, silk and wool in my slow cooker - it came out of the pot in beautiful shades of sugar pink, peach, raspberry and lavender - the rolags from this were almost edible - looking at those I found it hard to imagine why anyone wouldn't just want to make rolags just to admire them in their own delightful right. (hey we all have our quirks - right?)





Of course it's quicker to spin from tops direct, even if you have to open the fibre out first, but no matter how pleasing little nests and balls of prepared tops are I have to say that, in the main, rolags win my heart.