Hi,
Week two saw me at the Framework knitters museum in Ruddington ( after a stormy start waiting for a bus in the centre of town)
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I've spent more time simply prepping fibre this week so my actual spun total was just five skeins but still not bad for one week!
Back in January I realised that I was getting very low on white fleece, bad time of the year to buy and wash/dry it myself so when I saw a small wool mill advertising that they could sell wash and dried fleece I was understandably curious.
I contacted them asking if is was suitable for spinning and they assured me that they had spinners regularly buying the washed fleece. So I ordered some, a mule fleece and a Ryeland , in fact it was a huge Ryeland that filled three pillowcases.
mule fleece
My favourite way to process a fleece is to use my wool combs, this gives a really easy to spin fibre but is time consuming. Unfortunately both of the fleeces have proved to be difficult to work with, both are sticky and I feel that a box picker would be a very welcome addition to my equipment at this point.
I persevered and have spun a skein from each and today I have re washed some of the mule fleece to see if it makes a difference.
mule fleece rewashed
I persevered and have spun a skein from each and today I have re washed some of the mule fleece to see if it makes a difference.
Ryeland fleece spun and dyed
My plan had been to spin a kilo plus and then dye the skeins but I think the jury is out at the moment.
I still need spinable fibre as we have a longish road trip planned and I will be taking the e-spinner along so I bought a kilo of raw Jacob from a pedigree flock. Beautiful fleece, washed up well but lost maybe 40% or weight on washing, more on prepping but it was lovely to spin so may have ordered some more.
Then I snagged a large bag of Jacob at the last guild meeting so hopefully I will have 500/600gm prepped to pack in the van.
I also have a small bag of washed alpaca. I tried spinning alpaca maybe 10 years ago and didn't enjoy it but I'm thinking that maybe I'll try it again as it may be nice to blend with some Shetland so I'll keep you posted on that one.
I've been knitting as usual as I have a target of 10 of each (hats, mitts and headbands) and I'm nearly there in spite of keeping two hats back for myself and selling a hat and two pairs of mitts just before Christmas.
As usual, I've been stitching on a couple of stitch a long challenges ( one is more up to date than the other) and I will pack these in the van along with my knitting.
As I'm writing, the Met office have just issued snow warnings which probably won't impact us here but may possibly put a spanner in the works for my upcoming visit to the Buxton wool gathering. I am crossing just about everything at the moment 😀
pre-wash Highlander
I'm going give this a wash, soak, ball it up and knit a small sample. This fleece is probably going to be used in my hats over winter.
After washing, I hope you can see the shine :-) the background yarn is Ryeland spun at a coffee house last week.
Will I wash and prep the whole fleece? definitely !
I hope these few posts have been interesting to spinners, I split it into three as it would have been a bit too long as a single post. For non spinners, there is another travel post coming up along with a bit of knitting and some cross stitch xx
Hi
you can find part one here
Once dry I gave the fleece a final quick pick over and started loading it onto the combs, lock by lock to keep the fibres running in the same direction.
like Romney, these locks are a good 7inch plus in length and I could have done with finding my mister as static was a little problem.
As you can see, I sit sideways on to my e spinner and draft across in front of me.
Back with part three tomorrow x
Remember I mentioned a new breed/cross fleece from highlander sheep?
Well, I opened my front door just before we went away to find a box sitting in the doorway, a big box which has been residing in the kitchen waiting for me to return.
It weighs over 3 kilos and I suspect that it contains the promised fleece, I will open it properly tomorrow and investigate ( as long as its not raining )
I found some breeding info here but I haven't found anything that relates to the fleece yet.
later
the box was opened and I found a lovely letter from Val explaining that she knows the farmer and the shearer and is a spinner herself. She wants to educate other spinners about this breed as she was so delighted with it.
No trips out except to the shops.
No exciting weather just sunshine and showers.
No stitching progress.
It's really been a a bit of a non week, the highlight being moving all the stuff back into the van. Just taking out that crate of stuff has made the cupboards emptier all round.
TDF spinning washed, labelled ready to use/sell.
I have been knitting though, four pairs of fingerless mitts knitted from yarn oddments and the skeins that have knots in the, I'm really quite picky about which skeins get sold.
No set plans for this week at the moment, if the weather improves I will have fleece to wash as I'm making good progress processing the clean fleece stash in the work room. We have a two week break coming up so I'm hoping that I have enough fibre to spin whilst away also crossing fingers for dry windy days as we have a couple of kites in the van that haven't been flown since we put them in there, nearly four years ago !
Take care, speak soon x
Today it was back to tackling the black cheviot from the Isle of Skye, yep the fleece from the sheep that must have stood on the coal tip! Teeny, tiny bits of what looks like coal even though I'm sure it isn't but its a right pain even after combing as much out as possible. I'm spinning and relying on my fingers feeling the bits as I come to them. 107gm of yarn and a floor that needs sweeping.
And in the wash bag it goes, I now have 1.6 kilo of yarn ready for a serious washday.
The rest of my day was spent alternately doing house stuff and prying into pillowslips of fleece to see what is still lurking, For tomorrow I have 50gm of unknown white stuff to work with. I have a feeling that this may be Kerry hill but I didn't find a label in the raw fleece when I got round to washing some.
I'm taking a break from blogging for a couple of days as other things need my attention so my next update will probably be Sunday or Monday with an update on any spinning that I'm able to do.
Todays spinning, this fibre was prepped at least a year ago and there isn't a label with it so I'm having to guess that's its yet more Jacob ! I plan to ply it tomorrow.
Other than that, I've been stitching ,mainly to try out the new glasses that my optician has had made up for me specifically for stitching and hopefully they will help with lacemaking. I'm now able to work comfortably on 18/36 count which means that I will not have to pack the magnifier when we go away.
This is the 2020 Stitch along from Linen and Thread that I started last week, great fun to stitch.
