Wool, transformed: from locks to roving, by hand

Anyone remember this wool?



I started carding it in Week 7 of Craft or Bust. When I bought it last October, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it — you know. It was one of those fibery impulse buys. I liked the colors, I wanted to give the shop owner a sale ... and that planning thing is overrated. ;) (Some of science's most famous discoveries were accidental! And there's a story about how the therapeutic qualities of lavender were discovered, too. But anyway.)

After it aged in the stash a little, I decided I wanted to separate the colors. Of course, since the wool wasn't dyed in a way that produces neat, orderly little packets of color, there's a lot of variation and color overlap even within a single lock of wool. (This is fine with me, since it will produce yarn with a depth of color rather than one with a flat, even color.) There were only 2.2 ounces of it, and that's almost the amount I get out of one batt on my drum carder, so out came the hand carders. And voila:



Each little ball was carded as a batch (a tiny batt, if you will) on the carders, then removed, rolled into a rolag, and pulled into roving. Looks a lot neater now, doesn't it? :D There's still some texture in the roving, a few slubs here and there, because honestly, I wasn't in the mood to make obsessively smooth spinning fiber. Some days, with some wool, it seems like too much effort. And I don't mind texture. The yarn that comes out of this will definitely have some personality. :D

Can you guess what the finished yarn will look like? ;)

The Corriedale wins

...today's drawing for "Which fleece shall I wash next?" This is a) because it's already sorted into smaller bags, so I don't have to break it up for washing, and b) it smells all sheepy and could use a nice cleaning.

I have it bagged up in interesting categories, too: Short, Medium, Nice, Long and Dirty, Long and Clean, and Try and See. ;) I'm going to weigh the bags before I decide which to do today, so they're dry and ready next week.

...Starting with (according to the seller) 4.5 lbs of fleece, which apparently skirted down to about 4 lbs. when I did it a while ago. Bags weigh as follows (in the plastic bag, with a small piece of paper in), in approximate order of niceness ;):

Nice: 3.6 oz
Long and Clean: 10.8 oz
Medium: 1 lb. 5.2 oz
Short: 10.1 oz
Long and Dirty: 14.5 oz
Try and See: 4.3 oz

I'll do "Long and Clean" and "Short" first. Here goes!

Hmm, this batch only needed one initial rinse soak, one soap soak, and two rinses, and the water was pretty much completely clear when I was done, unlike the still somewhat clouded final rinse water from the Romney/Dorset/Rambouillets. Nice! I can use the final rinse water for the next batch's first rinse water. I think I'll do ... "Nice" and "Medium" next. Whee!

All right, and now I've officially run out of room on the drying racks, so "Try and See" and "Long and Dirty" will have to wait till Monday. That's almost three pounds washed today. Whew.

Riddikulus!

...Okay, it didn't turn my giant stash or pile of projects into something sillier (though one could argue the giganto-ness of both is pretty silly to begin with; maybe that's why it didn't work ;)), but it was worth a shot. Many times many updates today.

First, weaving: I tried out the 12-inch square loom last night. It's super-easy and fast, and now after looking at all the idiotically pretty pictures in the TriLoom gallery, I want a triangle loom. I really really want a triangle loom. I want to make crazy woven pretties with the pre-warp and cut length stuffs.



That's the first square I made, still on the loom. I made three last night, in Wool-Ease (worsted weight, which I never noticed was so uneven in weight till I saw it in the open weave), and so far one today. Still no real idea what I'm going to do with them. A wrap? A pillow? They're pretty lacy, and I'm not entirely sure whether washing them will take care of that, or what will. More research to be done.

I think I'll try to make a tote bag on the square loom today, since I'm supposed to make a bag for the mildly late Earth Mother's Day swap.

You can also see in the above picture that the table is still swamped by my piles of wool to be processed, but I did make it through the short-staple hand-carded bits last night, and it worked much better than before. Whew. Plus it got out a huge amount of VM, which is a wonderful fringe benefit. I only have one little bag of that left to card ... and I should be done with it just in time for the next two destash boxes to arrive. Eep. ;) I'm upgrading with these next two boxes, and I got them for less than the first box, entertainingly enough: one box is silk/Merino laps, and the other is pre-dyed fiber that needs carding. I also need another processed batts box, as I seem to have reached capacity on the other one without squishings going on.

In more wool (or at least fiber) processing news, I love the Spindlers list. I asked how to dehair llama by hand, and behold! An answer is given. So probably as soon as I know whether to wash it before I try to dehair it, I'll embark on that project, so I can card (or comb) the nice llama.

Finally, there was a contest being held at UFO Knit Club, and apparently ... I won. As you can see from my comment there, this baffles me somewhat. ;) I can't decide now whether to ask for spinning fiber or knitting stuff, since I do both. I'm marginally leaning toward spinning fiber, but it does kind of depend on what spinning stuff it is vs. what knitting stuff it is...

Yellow postcards, a belated pin cushion, and a fleece update

Sent three yellow postcards the other day for a swap. This scan is of two of them, because the third was basically a repeat:



As always, there are metallic bits that don't scan as metallic: in this case, the hand-drawn swirls. I really like how these turned out and I ought to make a bunch more stuff in this style. ;D

I also finally finished my Fabric Scrap Craft. OMG. I was originally making a coiled rag basket, but, er, it was in a plastic bag on the floor at Brian's and one of the lovely kitties, in a fit of pique, sprayed the outer bag. Although the rag basket in progress was hidden inside some scraps in the bag, rather than risk sending something that stinks of kitty bitchiness, I made an entirely new object and will leave the potentially stinky rag basket in the potentially stinky house. (Brian does clean a lot, but you start to get paranoid that you're desensitized ... ;))

Anyway, here's the pin cushion I made to replace the rag basket:





The scraps are left over from Virginia's first recital dress. I waffled between whether the light side of the fabric or the dark side of the fabric would be better as the official top of the pin cushion, and went with the dark side for some reason, but I think it looks good either way, so the recipient can really take her pick. ;)

The lace on that is hand-knit, too. :D I even blocked it (and now that I think of it, I either meant to take a photo or did take a photo and am now not sure where it is. Erk). It says in my swap recipient's profile that she likes Jane Austen novels, so I was inspired to make something that reminds me a bit of that time period. I hope she likes it. :D

In the Great Fleece Adventure, the black wool I washed earlier this week seems dry now, so I'll probably take that to visit the roving carder tonight. More wool washing seems in order for today, and while I originally intended on doing the llama next, I'm trying to figure out if I can dehair it, and I don't want to mess with it until I know whether I can and what I need to do for it. Chances are it'll need washing before I dehair it, but you never know, and it's not like I don't have other stuff to wash. ;)

Also, I did try hand-carding the short-stapled mystery destash wool, and it did work a lot better on the hand cards. I haven't tried putting it through the drum carder again yet because I still have some of the Lovely Long-Stapled Fluffies on there and I don't want to have to clean the drum carder twice in as many days just to spastically interrupt my current batch with a trial. ;)

Chloe lives!

Processed about half of Chloe's wool tonight. Mmm, it makes delicious batts. I'm not going to want to share any of this with anyone ... ;)

Fleecy goodness

The pound of fleece I washed last week, from Chloe of Desired Haven Farm, is now dry. Woo! So I'm going to take that back to Brian's with me, where my roving carder currently resides, and start carding it tonight or tomorrow. (For interesting reference, if I didn't do something funky while I was weighing it ;), the wool now weighs about 8.5 ounces, about half its previous weight, although I didn't weigh it before to make sure it really was a pound.) I'm also washing another pound of fleece today, this one from Desired Haven Farm's Maggie, a black Romney/Dorset/Rambouillet (according to -- I think -- the owner of the farm). If I have enough time and room, I might also wash all or some of that tan llama from the Davises.

Today's washings will be the first I've done with Dawn dish soap, rather than with either Eucalan or the natural/organic dish soap we have actually for dishes. The procedure from last week, to be followed generally today, was: shake out the fleece to get rid of ambient dirt and particles, put the fleece in a mesh laundry bag, two five-minute (or so) hot water soakings to remove whatever comes off that way (the first soaking was chocolate-milk-colored last week, but a super-clean fleece would obviously not need two pre-rinses), hot water + soap till the water feels "slimy" for about five minutes, then as many five-minute rinse/soakings as it takes for the water to stay clear, which last week was two, or maybe three. I'm squishing the wool a little at the beginning of each soaking session, even though that puts it at risk of felting, because I'm reckless like that and it makes me feel like I'm getting out more dirt. ;) Then I sling the mesh bag plus fleece around in the shower (since it seems prudent not to go outside and fling wool water all over the porch, at the potential hazard of passersby) to replicate the spin cycle effect and get as much water out as possible. Then I spread the wool out on a window screen in the front room and let it dry. Ta-da!

In processing news, some of the mystery destash wool has a rather short staple and is being difficult to drum-card -- it won't stick to the feeder drum so I can let the carder "tease" it for me -- so I think I'm going to have a go at it with the hand carders first. Even if I make a big tangle of it, at least a big tangle will probably stick to the feeder drum. ;)

And for today's pretties, I actually took a photo of the loom that Brian made me over the weekend:



He bought stretcher bars from Jo-Ann and put them together into a square, sanded it, marked and drilled the holes (1/2 inch apart), sanded it again, stained it cherry, then put in the nails and snipped off the sharp bits. I neglected to tell him beforehand that the nail heads should be on the ends of each pointy bit and not stuck into the wood, since they help keep the yarn loops from popping off the nails, but that's all right; he'll know for next time. ;) Some of the nails are a little crooked, and the heights aren't competely even, and the ends of the nails are still a little pointy because the wire cutters aren't the kind that cut flat, but all in all, it's a pretty little loom and it cost under $10 to make ... and he said the next one will be better. The square is 12", so the woven square that comes off it will be a little smaller, which didn't occur to me until we were in the process of making this one; doh. But that's all right, no one's going to be demanding precisely 12" squares from me.

So: Happy belated birthday to me. ;) Now I get to go try to figure out how to use this thing. The tiny Weavette came with weaving needles and instructions, but, er, I'm not sure whether I ought to use a needle with this, or what. Must go read the Files section on TriLoom...

Fluffies!

I started on my box of Mystery Destash Fluffies last night and discovered that there are, in fact, different types of wool in the box, although they're all pretty much the same color. Eep. ;) I'm trying as much as I can to separate out the different types, but since I don't know what any of it actually is, I'm probably going to end up labeling them all "mystery wool" regardless of whether I succeed in efficiently separating them.

Anyway, I had fun carding up a storm while Brian looked for a job online; I made about seven batts of some unknown weight, since my scale isn't at Brian's. The first wool I picked was terribly easy to card, but not very soft. I should probably try to make a socky blend out of it. This weekend will probably involve some dyeing of carded fibers for future blending, and I ought to finally take some photos of the awesome Spin to Knit orphan handspun goodies I got, and the Spring Bunny swap goodies, too.

Maybe I'll be able to convince myself to wash some fleece today. :D

[Added 11:58 a.m.:] I am going to see how much of a start I can make on the list of semi-abandoned fleeces. I wonder how much I can wash before I have to leave to pick Brian up ... and whether I'll have enough room to lay it all out! (Ready ... go!)

Fleeces to process

Making an impromptu list for myself of fleeces I still need to process/finish processing [edited April 11, 2007 to add more info on each fleece]:

*white Columbia - Zeneta Crawford, sheep Star - about 1 lb., 7 oz. (x 2?) [all washed; some of it needs re-washing; re-washed mid-March 2008]
*white Romney/Dorset/Rambouillet(?) - Misty Chandler, Desired Haven Farm, sheep Chloe - 1 lb. [washed April 13, 2007]
*black Romney/Dorset/Rambouillet(?) - Misty Chandler, Desired Haven Farm, sheep Maggie - 1 lb. [washed April 16, 2007]
*white unidentified donated wool - mailing list member donation
*last bits of grey Cotswold - from mabs on eBay [came washed]
*dark fawn Huacaya alpaca blanket - from Hideaway Alpacas on eBay, (male) alpaca Tahoe - 1 lb.
*Huacaya alpaca - from Hideaway Alpacas on eBay, alpaca Dream Maker -
*white Huacaya alpaca, blanket (31 microns) - eBay seller alangel4, alpaca Natalia - 1 lb. 8 oz.
*tan llama - Harold and Bonnie Davis - 2 lbs. [washed March 22, 2008]
*white Corriedale - Harold and Bonnie Davis - 4.5 lbs. [2.8 pounds washed April 20, 2007; I think the rest of this got washed on the Monday after, and then I re-washed some of it in mid-March 2008 because it still felt stickyish]
*white Columbia - Harold and Bonnie Davis - 4.5 lbs.
*white Shetland - Harold and Bonnie Davis - 3.5 lbs.
*white Merino x ewe - hoggett - Nancy Barnett, sheep Sissy - 5 lbs.

(Bold = still needs washing; italics = still needs processing into batts, roving, or top)

I did go a bit fleece-crazy this season, but hey, at least I won't run out of wool any time soon ... as long as (here's crossing my fingers that) this stuff hasn't randomly been attacked by the little ants that wander around here and occasionally appear in cardboard boxes. ;) I'll figure it out eventually...

Received the puzzle swap pieces from Anne at Eccentric Pastiche today. Must add that to list of arty things to work on...

On Baxil Standard Time

It's still the 22nd, so that's the day I mean when I say "today." (Meaning, I haven't gone to sleep yet so even though the calendar says it's the 23rd, it's the 22nd to me.)

Today: I...

Sorted some fleeces...



...and didn't sort others. (I'm washing the latest Columbia before I do anything with it. It's a bit too mucky for me not to ... and the Shetland didn't look like it needed much sorting, or if it does, I can't tell how to do it with the dirt on the fleece. The llama really needs to be shaken thoroughly on a screen or something before I wash it all because there's no use in washing it if all the VM is just going to get washed and stay in with the fiber ... but I did sort the Corriedale? ;)) In other fibery news, I even spun all the samples I said I would spin, and earlier in the day I tried steam blocking for the first time. I'm going to do some more steam blocking tomorrow on those samples.

Also tried to reconstruct a shirt...



...and got almost all the way done, but was ultimately too lazy to overlock the side seams yet again because I'm so dang small and the fabric is so dang stretchy. It's now a tube top. Exciting. I have a pile of other t-shirts to reconstruct that will hopefully be more original.

Then I worked on the jewelry for a trade on Etsy, so that now I have one funkychunkypinkandorange yarn necklace with loopies, a pair of pink and purple berrylike earrings that I actually think I would wear if they were mine and I had anything they matched even vaguely, and one of the few strung necklaces I've ever done in my life, and I wonder if this one will fit the bill of Fun and Funky and Wild. (I always have that problem with stringing. I'll get better at it ... someday?) All of it is currently stuffed in half of a largish Easter Egg tin I found at the thrift store:



I'm not sure i'm going to work on the KYOAMPi tonight, even though I'd like to. I have to sleep sometime, though it'd be easier convincing myself to sleep and do things tomorrow if I knew I'd actually bother waking up in the morning when I don't "have" to, thus enabling myself to actually do things tomorrow. ;)

Now, off to waffle over whether to work on it or stay up even more insanely late doing something else!