Jacob Fleece

Last week while attending our local Northwest Spinner's Association Spin-in at the Ballard Library, I sat next to a very nice woman. I told her about the fleece rugs I'm trying to make, she said she had a fleece that she wanted to give me. This woman left the spin-in to run home and get it. I took one look at the Jacob fleece and told her I wouldn't want to put it in rug, I'd want to spin it! And that's exactly what I've undertaken this week...
After sorting colored sections, I began to wash the locks. I decided that I'd comb this fleece, so I carefully washed the locks between two cooling racks so they would stay aligned. This system worked well. I sandwiched the locks between the wires and then submerged them in hot soapy (Dawn) water. After they soaked for a while I submerged them in a rinse bath and Voila!--clean locks.
Here's a comb loaded with one of the "mixed" color sections.
After two passes...
The waste is on the left and the fiber, ready to spin, is on the right. I used a total of 3 passes on the combs. This is my first time working with a Jacob fleece. I can't wait to spin it!

Spring!

Now that I'm done moving my office to the new building, I hope to have more time for yarn. All my creative energy went into fixin' up the new place so I have basically done nothing with fiber for weeks. Every so often I'd comb wool a little bit while watching TV, but that's it. The photo is of the combed product ready to spin. Tonight I got out the carder and carded some of the seconds from the colored Shetland. That will be fun to try to spin.

Spring means more to me this year. While living in Seattle I noticed there was little difference between winter and spring other than a few buds on the trees. Here in Montana, Spring is like Prozac! I'm starting to feel hopeful. Unfortunately, side effects may include: winter relapse and mud.

Truely Worsted

Here's my first all hand made worsted yarn. It's natural colored shetland spun in a 2-ply. As mentioned before, I used my hand combs for the prep.

The Pleasure of Combed Wool

Ahhh...spinning from hand combed Shetland is wonderful. This was the most delightful spinning ever! It took a long time to hand comb the wool but it spun so even and fast. The photo doesn't do the color justice. This is from the 5 lbs of Shetland I purchased a while back.

I pulled all the purple batts into roving balls. I have no interest in spinning this stuff now that I have discovered the joy of spinning hand combed fiber. This will just have to sit in a basket looking pretty for now.

A week of trying new things

This week I experimented with embroidery using naturally dyed yarn samples. The pillows are all wool but feel pretty soft.

I worked up a sample of the purple cotswold. I'm trying to spin a thicker yarn.

This week I also washed 5 lbs of shetland. I'm really excited about this fleece, it's so soft! I washed it in the kitchen sink (which is really small) and it took two days to get it all done. This morning the glass lid of our top loading washer shattered. I'll be calling the manufacturer tomorrow. Can you imagine if glass shattered into a fleece?!? Yikes! Glad I washed this fleece in the sink.

I finally got to try out my new wool combs. I had watched some youtube videos before I tried them and that really helped.

Merry Christmas

It's nice that I finally have time to sit down and update my blog. I try to take the photos with daylight, but daylight has been scarce these days. At night, when I finally have time to get on the computer, it's too late to photograph my projects. Today I got an early start.

There were many presents exchanged in my household and everyone is thrilled with their gifts. I want to show off my fiber-related presents...

My husband gave me these little stitch markers. They are cute little wool and clay sheep! He got them on etsy from Wee Ones.

OMG! My husband, the best husband in the whole wide world, gave me these wool combs!!!

Here are my current projects:

Now that I've done sweater from raw wool to the end, big projects don't seem that intimidating. So with the next spinning project I decided to do a "sweater's worth" of yarn. I blended the charcoal colored Coopworth with some black merino top. I put all the batts on the couch so you can see what I think a "sweater's worth" is. OK, so it might be a small sweater.

Speaking of small sweaters, I started knitting the Something Red sweater by Wendy Bernard from Knit and Tonic. I hope I have enough yarn. It's a short sleeve cardigan so my 8 hanks of cranberry colored Coopworth should do.

Merry Christmas everyone!