Realization for the day

I spent the best part of today demonstrating spinning with a spinning wheel at Fine Line for the Fox Valley Arts Ramble. I love demonstrating fiber related things, and since we were inside in the air conditioning it was doubly nice. I am peopled out at the moment, though. 

Surprisingly, not one person (usually a man), watched me spin and then announced, "I bet I could automate that." This meant that I didn't have to tamp down my inner snark and observe that since he was wearing industrial made textiles, he might be a little late to the party. Instead, the general reaction was bafflement. A few people were able to make the connection between what I was doing and the labor textiles used to require, but many didn't seem to quite understand. 

But here's my own personal realization for the day. (I'll also add that when I announced this after I got home, it made L. laugh. A lot.) In general, I don't think the general public is as interested in sheep, the different breeds of sheep, and the different types of fiber those sheep produce as I am. Shocking, I know. I had brought some samples to help explain this to people, but just a handful made it through even my very cursory explanation. Sigh. I guess I'm not overly surprised. But it does show that we have become such a textile illiterate society that people aren't even close to even understanding what they don't know about textiles. 

While you are puzzling over the convolutedness of that previous sentence, I will go and continue to recover from excessive peopling by reading a book. 

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