The end results of Fiber preparation

Whether that is dyeing or washing, combing or spinning, the feeling of accomplishment is there. I finished both the Vernal Equinox shawl and a beaded cowl with the locks I got in February.

This is the shawl. It is a nice large size and very comfortable to wear.

Here it is blocking...

And there's is the cowl, showing the entire process from start to finish:

1. The unwashed locks from the fleece
2. Clean and combed locks
3. Singles on the bobbin
4. The finished cowl (pattern is Abstract Leaves Cowl)
   
5. Plied yarn
6. Finished and washed yarn

On to other knitting and spinning and washing and dyeing...

Every knitter's nightmare

I am sure every one of you knitters has experienced butterflies in the stomach when looking at this little bit of yarn. I am no different. I am close to finishing the Vernal Equinox shawl but not that close. sigh

 

Here is the shawl, with all the yarn used up. I have 10 more rows to do. No more yarn! However, since I dyed the yarn myself, I can dye more! That is the beauty of hand-dyed yarn. This is straight Wilton's Violet food coloring. It split but that is not a requirement. Even if it comes out slightly different, it won't be a problem. 

  

I also did a bit of spinning this week. I spun the first single from my hand processed fleece. It wasn't the best prep and I had a lot of neps. Some I removed and some I left in to add some texture to the yarn. It is spun semi-worsted, lock by lock. Where I could identify a tip, I spun from the tip. But there were a lot of short cuts where I couldn't identify a tip so I just spun from one end. I will start spinning the other single today.

 

It is a pretty fine single. I think I will be able to get a fingering weight yarn out of this. It will be a 2-ply. Once I know the approximate yardage, I will plan a project.

That is it for this week fiber wise. My plans for the upcoming week are to finish the other single, dye the yarn for the shawl and maybe finish it. Let's see how the week progresses.

I changed the slideshow on the page. It is now a preview of a Dale Chihuly exhibit at the Dallas Arboretum. I was there last weekend and was privileged to see the exhibit in the process of being set up. It starts May 5. If you are in the area, I recommend you go see it because it is lovely. All the brightly colored objects are glass but they look as if they are growing right out of the ground.

Locks without keys

I've been cleaning locks (locks from sheep, of course) all week. The results are amazing. When we last left the process, I had finished washing most of them. I am now done with all the washing and most of them are ready for spinning. Be prepared for an amazing transformation!This collage is a summary of the work. The washed locks full of vegetal matter (VM) are on the left. Going clockwise around the collage, you can see the tools I used, the final fiber ready for spinning and the waste in the bin. The waste is short cuts, VM and tangles.

Looking at each in detail, this is the last bit of fiber I have to process. It is pretty typical of the fiber after washing. Lots of VM.I combed them with this dog comb (on the bottom) and also used the slicker (on the top) when the tangles were too much for the comb. I treated the locks as if they were my hair.

The end result is amazing. This is the fiber that I am ready to spin. I think I am going to spin it from the fold.And here is what was discarded. You can see the VM in the bin.

Now, on a totally different topic, I have been drinking green tea during the day since January. I have cut down my coffee consumption to one cup in the am. Up to this week, I have been finishing off tea bags that had accumulated in the house. This week I am starting on loose tea, which is what I really like. Loose tea can be a pain when you are on the go. I found this tea travel mug in Panama and it is my work mug.On the top is the tea in a little strainer that sits in the mug. The left lower picture shows the screw top on the mug. It is water tight and doesn't leak. The inside is all stainless steel so it doesn't impart a taste to the tea. On the right you can see the mug with its top on. It is sleek and keeps the tea hot for a long time. And, with the top screwed on, I can safely take it to meetings without spilling hot tea on myself or other people.

A whole lot of misc going on

Since I didn't have a mindless project, I started one. This is the Shetland top that I spun. I started a Fenna shawl from Myrna Stahman's Shawls and scarves book. I've done all the tough part - the shoulder shaping. Now I just have to knit and knit and knit till I'm done with the 3 balls of yarn I have. They will be knit in order from right to left and I hope the shawl will get slowly darker as I go down. It won't be completely dark but just the overall look will be darker.

I bought some beads yesterday. This is the one I love. The yarn is something that I plied together and I want to knit in a gold strand with it. The beads pick up the colors of the yarn perfectly.
The colors are truer in this picture.
I gave away my Spring Stripe Study shawl to a friend as it was more her style than mine. In return I got this lovely skein of Skinny Bugga. I got beads that perfectly match the colors too!
On to fleece washing. I am done with all the locks except a small bit that isn't separating into locks very easily.
There are some differences in the amount of VM in the locks. The ones above are quite clean.
Contrast that with these. I wonder what I'm going to be left with after I remove the VM from these?
The part above is the really dirty part of the fleece. The part that resulted in the dirty locks above. I wonder if this came from the legs of the sheep.
This was the clean part. See how nice and orderly the locks are? And how much less VM there is?
Here they are - all laid out to dry. On to flicking and carding next.

Washing locks

I started washing the fleece I got last week. I decided that I wanted to get to know the process in detail and what better way to get to know the various steps than to do them a lock at a time. Margaret Stove describes a way to wash locks in her video on Spinning for Lace. I decided to use that method.
Here is a lock as I received it. It is probably typical of the locks in the part of the fleece I got. Some are cleaner and some are dirtier.
This is my washing set up. I boiled water in the stainless steel Dutch oven and scooped out half of it with the measuring cup. I added a little cold water from the tap. You can see that in the sink. On the left, on the striped towel are the washed locks that have not yet been rinsed. They've been swished in water, rubbed on soap and then swished in the water again before being squeezed dry and laid out on the towel.
Here is a closer look at them. You can see the soap in this shot also.After I washed about a third of them, I rinsed them in clean hot water using the same method. Swish, squeeze, swish, squeeze. Lay out on towel.

Here is the complete set from about an hour of work last night. That included boiling two lots of water in the Dutch oven. I filled it to about 1" from the top and it seemed to take forever to boil. I think it has a 6 qt capacity.

You can see that the lock at the top left has a lot of vegetal matter left. I opened it up this morning with a hair pick and got a lot of it out. I think I have to do more to clean it up. Most of the rest of the locks are quite clean.

I plan to card them and spin from rolags although I might just spin from the locks directly. I haven't decided and keep waffling between the two.

Another shawl done

Yes, it is starting to become ho-hum for me too. But I am using up my sock yarn stash and it is going a lot faster than socks. So I am happy. Also, shawls make great gifts, especially sock yarn shawls, because they are machine washable and quite durable.

This one is another Stripe Study shawl. I made one for my niece last year and enjoyed knitting the pattern. I thought it would break up the stripes and make it more interesting. And I was right. The navy is actually two colors. The top and all the stripes are a lighter navy and then there is a band of darker navy across the bottom. I had two partial skeins of navy and decided to use them up.
I am very excited about my next spinning project. I signed up for a Fleece of the Quarter club at my spinning guild. I got my first fleece on Friday. We get to wash, card/comb, spin and make something from it - keeping detailed records/samples in a journal. Then we meet and discuss our experiences and compare the results.

I think it will help me understand how to process a fleece without having to deal with a whole one. Also, I will get to understand differences in technique and differences in the actual wool of various breeds.

Here is the wool I got from a sheep called Mint. She is a Dorset-Hampshire cross.
This is a closer look at the locks with a 3x5" index card by the side for reference. I will be documenting my experiences here so you will all get to journey along with me.
I have started working on my Swedish Heart-warmer shawl again. It is slow going as I am weaving in the floats as I go. This means that I have to learn to weave in on the purl side and that is something new. My fingers are slowly learning the process. It will get faster as I progress on the shawl.