Category: Spinning

Part of my criteria (for choosing a farm to purchase sheared animal fiber) is to find people that treat their animals kindly and genuinely care about their overall well-being.
At this rate, it’s highly doubtful that I’ll have shaken out the dirt, picked off the large bits of vegetable matter, washed, cleaned, combed or carded all my animal fiber before autumn is finished. During my “down time” in between spinning yarn for the cape (that I’m creating for a knit designer) I’m starting to break down my cleaned fiber into bags.

The first picture shows a few of them. I’ve marked the breed and have included the farm on some of the bags. I’ll eventually add that information to all. The bags listed does not even represent 1% of the raw fiber I have. I am thrilled to say that all the animal fiber I have received came from small farms that HUMANELY shear their animals. They seem to treat them more as pets, which I think is nice.

The second picture shows Polypay sheep. Regarding spinning, it’s another “new to me” breed. Polyplay sheep were created by crossing Targhees to Dorsets and Rambouillets to Finnsheep. The crossbreed offspring were recrossed. Which results in the animal having 25% of each parent breed.

The last two pictures features the actual raw fleece. Their fiber is soft, durable and very fine. When spinning, it’s important to have a light hand because the fibers tend to clump and thin out easily.

It does well with dyeing. That’s good to know! This fiber is perfect for “next to skin” garments. I’m receiving a whole fleece, almost seven pounds, of this fiber. The staple length is about 3″.

A few notes I’m learning about dealing with raw wool…
Careful attention must be given to the entire process, from removing the excess vegetable matter before you even wash the fleece. If you wash the fleece incorrectly, depending on the fleece it can felt. Also when you card (think slicker brush) or comb the fleece, proper care is needed or you could damage the fiber. Cleaning fleeces is a long and tedious process, but I enjoy it immensely.

Cleaning my spinning wheel is something that I have to start doing with my beloved Ruth (Kromski Sonata). I’ve had her since February and besides the occasional wipe down with cloth, I have not applied furniture polish to her. I saved this video a few months ago, but as of yet I have not made an effort to do anything. Instead of purchasing “wood oil” for my spinning wheel. I am going to research and look for natural alternatives. Almond oil seemed to be one suggestion that I read, and I do have plenty of that at home. We use it for our skin.

In other news…

There’s so much going on in our lives and while I’ve taken plenty of crafty photos (sewing, knitting, spinning and cooking) and even uploaded them to this site… I haven’t written about them yet, but will!

Yesterday, I was knitting my test knit cowl when I realized something that my join was twisted. Ulp… In my 35+ years of knitting this has only happened a few times.

Because of that I’ve frogged my project and am starting over. I’m a process knitter, so it didn’t bother me that much. If something isn’t right, I’ll make it right. Today, after my work is finished, I’ll be knitting. This project is due next week. It’s a simple lace knit project so it should not take me too long.

Saturday, I received the above books from a Facebook friend The majority of the people that I’m friends with on Facebook are family, friends and a few former classmates, there might be five that I don’t actually know. This lady hosts a sewing forum on there which is how I “met” her. We’ve struck up a friendly conversation because of our similarities. In a few weeks, I’ll be sending her some of my handspun yarn along with a few other goodies. I cannot wait to see how she likes her gifts.

In other news…

Yesterday morning, this is what greeted us out in the garden. We took him back to the woods, perhaps a 1/2 acre away and set it free. I’ve always adored raccoons. I had no way of knowing what sex this one was, but I’ve named it… “Lucy.”

You know the handspun yarn that I made for the test knit cowl? Well, here it is.. it’s yellow!

I plan to dye it again, but this time with orange dye.

Last evening, I found my copy of Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, with illustrations by Alan Lee. What a coincidence… the yellow of the yarn is the same color as the yellow in this sketch. I should have taken a better picture. I’ll do that soon, and repost.

The same day I dyed this yarn, I made vegetable fried rice. Do you see that the color is similar to my handspun yarn? It was made possible by turmeric!

In other news…

We have a new computer. It’s a Dell – Inspiron 23.8″ All-In-One Touchscreen – 1TB Hard Drive. Our old computer stopped working a few months ago.  It still feels odd using the computer as a touch screen and to be honest, I haven’t really taken advantage of that feature… yet. We purchased the above computer this past Saturday from Best Buy. The screen is a bit bigger than our old computer screen, which was a 19″. The same day that we received the new computer, I was able to get the old computer to work again. It’s not as fast as this computer; however, it’s perfect for my daughter’s needs and so it’s now in her room. At her Lutheran school, they have class assignments (Math and Writing) during the summer time and she’s been diligent to complete them on time. She will be attending the Lutheran school one more year and most likely in ninth grade onto graduation… she will be homeschooled. We’re both looking forward to that opportunity. It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do and to be perfectly honest, it’s something that I have done. She was reading, writing and doing simple addition and subtraction before she entered into kindergarten.

I hope you all are having a wonderful Monday!