Last night my daughter and her friend came to visit with my "Granddog" Nutmeg. That's a picture of my daugher taken around the Holidays last yeat. We all had a slow and lazy (at least for them) day around the house. I got a ton of fibery things done from washing up the majority of the wool samples for my class (the middle picture is the samples drying on a screen that's balanced on my little used loom) , to spinning the second bobbin of brown shetland for my simple shawl that's in process.
The top picture shows the brown shetland drying next to my sample of Columbia yarn from the fleece study class. I have only a couple of samples to finish washing after my work today, but the big job is going to be to card them all and get them spun. I have begun to card another sample using my hand cards (I actually enjoy working on them with the hand cards because I really get to experience how the fleece is reacting and how soft or coarse it is). I did break down and order some combs as some of the samples are longwools that won't take to carding well. I have used combs before in classes I've taken so I'm looking forward to experiencing them too.
The biggest learning point that I've taken from the fleece study class is the knowledge that I really prefer to use processed fiber! It's so easy and I don't have to pick anything out of it as I spi, nor take the time to wash or card. When I started spinning, I did absolutely love working with fleece right off the hoof. Perhaps having probably 50 or more pounds of fleece still in my basement for me to eventually work on has colored my love of raw fleece. Now, I make no promises that I'll never purchase another raw fleece, there's an irrestible draw of touching, experiencing, and working with it, but for now I'm probably going to enjoy the processed fibers. Since I have such limited time to spin (and today was a fantastic day of zen spinning for me between doing everything else), I don't want to spend too much of my time washing and carding, I just want to sit down and spin. Somehow I just don't get the same zen feeling from washing!
Oh, BTW, I'm looking for some Romanov fleece just because I've never even seen any! I haven't found a source yet, so if any of you have any suggestions, please share! Thank you!
1 comment:
At the rate Liz and I are acquiring fleeces, I wouldn't be surprised if we come across a Romanov along this journey.
The yarn looks wonderful. It seems we're all exploring fleece these days but your way seems more, shall we say, compact :-)
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