Now, what was I saying?? Oh, yeah, ... lets say for instance that you can buy a raffle ticket (for charity) and the prize was a fleece? Well that (it IS for charity) is the icing on the cake now, isn't it? So how many tickets would you buy?
This love of fleece when combined with a love (dare I say passion?) for prepared, colored to perfection, blended, and put in a ready to spin format that certain adored people would give us the opportunity to purchase, leads one to having a LOT of fiber about. *Sigh* I stand before you now and say, "Hi, my name is Barb, and I am a fiber junkie".
My hands feel so soft and smooth right now. Everyone, meet Wingnut. She goes well with this screwball spinner.
On the left top we have Wingnut layed out, looking for felted bits, chunks of VM, second cuts, and other "stuff" that I don't care to spin. This is a very clean fleece as far as hay and other VM goes, but there's lots of lanolin and dust in it. Under that more to the center, Missy is getting her photo taken with Wingnut. She knows she will see more of this wool later. At the bottom in the blue tub we have Wingnut with her second washing - which is more of a rinse. The first washing was with Kookaburra WoolWash. I really like the stuff. Wingnut has got some tips on her wool that need a good soak, so they're going to sit in the water overnight. The heat of the day tomorrow should help them relax too. I'll check it when I come home from work tomorrow. Good thing my wonderful husband, Wayne, gave me a large cabinet for fiber. I did a felting test, she felts. She's very shiny and has fine fibers without tight crimp. I've sent an email to the person "in the know" at Kelsey Creek Farm to see if she can give me the scoop on this sheep. It seems that Wingnut comes to the farm for her haircuts for their Wild and Wooly days events, but she's not a permanent resident there.I did turn in the sweater to the Monroe Fair (Evergreen State Fair) as well as a few skeins of yarn. We will see how they do. I go in the evening of the 25th to do a spinning demo. I'll check the show hall and see what's going on then.
We did a lot of work outside around our pond this weekend. I'll have to update you on the pond project later this week!
6 comments:
Yes and I have to admit I like WASHING FLEECE. It's like magic. Something yellowish and sheepy goes into the washer and something white and poofy comes out. That is a BIG FLEECE! you can't tell till you see it with Missy. I've never skirted my own but have to learn some day.
Wow, Barb, how many pounds of wool is that? It looked big enough on its own but with Missy there to provide scale it looks even bigger! I love processing raw fleeces too. (I'll confess - I'm a fleece sniffer!)
I never got around to weighing it, but I'd say 10 pounds is what she came in at. She was well skirted already, but I did find a chunk of neck fiber I removed due to felted wool in that area. Thanks for confirming I'm not the only one who loves the raw fleece :-)
Wow! That's one huge fleece! What does Missy think? Soft on her paws?
Wow, Wingnut is very nice looking, what kind of sheepie?
And where did said sheepie fleece come from??
Hehehe - Jen, Missy would much rather be on the fleece than to have the fleece on her! LOL!
Tina, sheepie lives somewhere here 'bouts. I've got feelers out to try and find out more on the sheep particulars. I got the fleece from Kelsey Creek Farm, they had about four more left ;-) One named Baa-bee (lots of crimp but shorter fibers), another that's a Cheviott, and I'm not sure what the other two were.
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