Attn: Logophiles and Fiberphiles

After spending much time these past 2 weeks madly re-skeinning some dyed yarn in preparation for craft fair this weekend, I started wondering, Is skeinning a word? By all accounts, I think it should be. However, to my dismay, when I looked up skein, it's listed only as a noun. The logophiles and linguistics experts out there who form petititions, committees and decisions about the lexicons and language used in modern English, and who ultimately decided whether a new word should be added to the dictionary, must not be fiber lovers.

Can you believe it? Fiberphile is not a word. However, technophile is. And why not? The suffix -phil (phile, philia) denotes love or attraction, usually of an obsessive nature. There are many types of philia, with pedophilia being the most notorious. Then there are also other more obscure ones:
Lygophilia - love of darkness
Taphophilia - love of graves,cemeteries and funerals
Audiophilia - Love of high-fidelity sound reproduction
Hippophilia - Attraction to horses

Wikipedia maintains a short list. I found AlphaDictionary, which has a bunch o' philias in their list, which according to them, they basically replaced the known phobias from a list from the Canadian Mental Health Association with the -philia suffix. Hey, why not? Makes sense to me, with some exceptions that really leave me agape and pondering:
ankylophilia - love of immobility of a joint -- ?!?!
leprophilia - love of leprosy -- ?!?!
oneirogmophilia - love of wet dreams -- hahaha!!! poor preteen and teen boys!
pediculophilia - love of lice -- okay...I can imagine "Ohh...I just love a itchy head full of lice and lice eggs!"... yuck.

I did find one fiber-related philia -- Textophilia, which means love of certain fabrics according to AlphaDictionary, but I was unable to find a definition for it through Dictionary.com. I think the following words SHOULD be added to English language dictionaries:

SKEIN, skeinned, skeinning - verb. the act of winding or reeling yarn or thread into coils.
RESKEIN, reskeinned, reskeinning - verb. the act of rewinding yarn or thread into coils when the yarn or thread is already in a coil. This act of rewinding yarn is mostly used by knitters and crocheters who dye their own wool.

FIBERPHILIA - noun. the love or enthusiasm for fiber, textiles, wool, and yarn. FIBERPHILE - noun. one who has a love or enthusiasm for fiber, especially in knitting and other crafting that involves wool or other fibers.

LANAPHILIA or WOLLEPHILIA - noun. the love or enthusiasm for sheep and wool! (not related to any weird bestiality or zoophilia festishes or anything, of course! yuck.)
LANAPHILE or WOLLEPHILE - noun. someone who has a love or enthusiasm for sheep and wool! (again, not related to zoophilia or other such festishes and orientation!!)

Don't you think that these words should be added too? These words are certainly being used in our fiber culture lexicon.

On another interesting note, the craft fair this weekend is sponsored by the now-notorious Piecemakers. There were 2 articles in row in the LA Times about the 85 year old sect leader wearing fatigues and a beret as she was getting sentenced for not allowing a health inspector into the Piecemaker's store. This will be my first official craft fair. I should note that my friends and I are not part of their organization, nor do our views necessarily agree with theirs, but the ladies are nice and we're just having a booth at the fair. I attended the October Piecemakers fair, where Zona had a booth, and they had a great eclectic turn out. I hear the December holiday one is better attended and more exciting. How can it not now with the additional notoriety? (hopefully) If you are in SoCal, come by and say hi! Zona, Aubrey and I are splitting a space and we will be selling various yarn and fiber related stuff. Hopefully, I will be able to post some pix of some of my stuff tomorrow, if I'm not too exhausted.