Fleecemaker's Fiber Odyssey

Last Lamb of the Season

2010-04-12T15:42:00.000-04:00

She finally fell apart. I'm talking about Mischief, who lives up to the name. One of our ewe lambs from last year who managed to get accidently bred. We've been waiting weeks to see our new arrival. And he is a handsome ram lamb. Well done.

We also traded for a unique ram lamb with a fellow Romney breeder. He has colorful markings which we hope he will eventually pass onto his progeny.

I did spin the fiber for the spin a long previously mentioned and made a crazy yarn. It was a lot of fun and made me stretch my comfort zone.

It has been a very busy couple of months. Between the lambing, skirting fleeces, processing wool for the etsy store I haven't had much time to spin. I hope to recitfy that shortly. My stash of fiber earmarked to be spun into yarn is getting dangerously high. Until next time.

Spin a Long

2010-02-03T13:14:00.000-05:00

I've joined my first spin a long and I just received my package! The Gorgeously Gothic Spin-A-Long is from Dawning Dreams of etsy.com. Here's some pics.

I have one month to spin the yarn and submit pictures. Should be a lot of fun.

Skirting Fleeces Finally

2010-02-01T13:17:00.000-05:00

I finally had some time to start looking at the fleeces we sheared at the end of December. I had to setup the skirting table in the basement since the weather is not even slightly warm. Lighting is an issue, but I brought in several additional lights to help out.
There is something soothing about skirting fleeces. You get to see the end result of a year's work and see how well you did. I have to say this years fleeces are looking nothing less than stunning. Unfortunately, it takes me about an hour a fleece so this will take weeks to complete. Here are a couple of pics of the fleeces I got my hands on. Remember, it's basement lighting so the fleeces are more yellow than they appear in regular light.

Trinity's fleece skirted

593's fleece skirted

January PHAT FIBER Box Arrived!

2010-01-21T11:37:00.000-05:00

I received my January Phat Fiber box in the mail yesterday. Arrived much sooner than I expected. So exciting. I couldn't wait to open it to see what was inside.

All kinds of yummy fibers, yarns, patterns, stitch markers, and even tea. What a treat! I love the whole concept. This was the first month I contributed to the box and I'm planning on contributing every month this year. Getting a box is a big incentive for contributing. It's wonderful to see what other fiber addicts, I mean, artists are making and what kind of fibers they're using.

Playing with locks

2010-01-13T14:32:00.001-05:00

I've been busy washing fleeces, dyeing and sorting. Deciding what colorways to use in new rovings and I found a Cotswold lamb fleece in my stash that spoke to me. I've dyed it in two different colorways and love the way they turned out.

I'll be listing these as locks on my Etsy site for those who want to create art or novelty yarn. I think I hear my drumcarder calling me. Catch ya later.

A Busy Start to a New Year

2010-01-08T12:07:00.002-05:00

Well, It has been a while - no postings during 2009! I hope to do much better this year.
Right before Christmas we had the big snow - 20 plus inches - the sheep and goats didn't leave the barn for a week.

The snow melted just in time for shearing day on the 29th. We sheared everyone except our oldest girl. So now I have several dozen gorgeous fleeces sitting in my basement clamoring for attention. I hope to start on them soon.

Our New Year began with lambs! So far we have had lambs on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 6th. I think we are done for several weeks before more lambing starts. It's so much easier for the lambs to find mom's milk when they don't have a large fleece. Its easier to check the ewe's progess during labor too when they aren't hiding under a fleece. Here are some pictures of our newest wool on the hoof.

I've been spending my indoor time trying new spinning techniques. I love trying new ideas and creating unusual yarn. Here are some pics of my latest beauties!

I've also been washing and dyeing fleece to restock my etsy store. My newest venture - I joined PhatFiber and will be contributing to their boxes! I'm very excited about this. It's a group of very creative artists and they are very inspiring. I hope to contribute every month this year. I'll end as I started - it's going to be a very busy and fun year!

Can you say 'boucle'?

2008-09-25T11:36:00.013-04:00

My latest challenge has been trying to figure out how to spin a boucle yarn to my liking. I've spun some super coiled boucle that works but I've been unable to spin a simple boucle that I like. That is until this week!

Boucle means to buckle or curl and a good yarn does just that. Boucle is a yarn that has a core yarn or thread, a wrapping yarn and a fine binder. My results before now were loose and uneven. I've come to discover that when creating the spiral yarn with the core and the wrapping yarn you need to add a great deal of additional twist to create the boucle look I'm going for. Here's some pictures of the boucle yarn.

I've also spun up a skein of the tencel roving I dyed. I spun a thicker single and it turned out quite nice. I'm surprised how heavy the yarn is. It has a nice drape and lots of shine!

Hope you have fun discovering all the different ways to spin yarn like I do.

And there I spin....

2008-08-20T14:14:00.010-04:00

Well, I haven't spun the bamboo or tencel roving yet... to be honest I'm a little intimidated... and they are so nice to look at. So, I've been spinning thick and thin novelty yarn instead.

I had thought I would post more regularly than this. It's amazing how time flies. The garden has come on and we've been putting up for the winter. Now the grapes are ready and need attention.

We've had out county fair and I entered some handspun just to see what the judges would think and what do you know I took best in show! That was nice surprise. I entered two singles, one navajo ply yarn and one coiled corespun yarn. My favorite of the bunch was the coiled corespun(the green yarn). The picture doesn't do it justice. It's really neat to look at and has a slinky feel.

The latest novelty yarn I've spun has turned out quite well. One set is Romney wool hand dyed then spun thick and thin and plied around a metallic nylon thread. It's rich with color, orange, brown, plum, pumkin, and almost black.

Another set is a merino roving I dyed lightly and then spun thick and thin. I plied it with three threads, one gold, one pink/red, and one green/blue, all at the same time. It's very soft to touch.

Two of my daughters commented on how nice it turned out. That's unusual, normally I get 'that's different'. Maybe I'm headed in the right direction after all.

I'm hoping to get back to the dyepots soon. I have some custom orders to do and yarn, fleece and roving that need color!

See ya next post...

'Playing' with Reactive Dyes

2008-07-31T17:43:00.016-04:00

I've been wanting to try using reactive dyes for a while now. Currently, I've only used acid dyes because I've only dyed wool, mohair and some silk, all protein fibers. I have a lot of fun with acid dyes. I love color and creating different color combinations is always exciting.
So I'm quite ready to try reactive dyes...... I purchased some bamboo top and some tencel top to try with the reactive dye. They are so beautiful undyed, lots of luster and shine. That's one of the reasons we raise Romney and Cotswold sheep and Angora Goats. Their fleeces have lots of luster. Yummy!

I've read up on reactive dyes and the different procedures depending on the effect you want to achieve. So I'm starting with the low water immersion method because I want to use several colors at a time. Obviously, you have to follow all the safety rules... masks when mixing the dyes and gloves when handling the dye.

Here are some pics of the process:

This is after I poured the colors and before I added the fixer.

This is after I poured the fixer and before I applied a plastic cover.

Here's a shot of a batch with the plastic on and I'm waiting for the reaction time to pass.

And finally shots of the finished rinsed roving - the colors are gorgeous! I love it!

I can't wait to spin them! I know it will be different than spinning wool. I'll fluff the fiber and probably predraft a little to loosen everything up. I'll post pics when I spin some up!