Sheepiness

So, it being a holiday week and with my boss out of town and most of my work done, I had enough time yesterday that I could take periodic breaks in my work to stop by the laundry room (literally two doors down from my office) and wash a fleece. I say this because while you would think “washing” sounds like an easy one-step process, washing a sheep’s fleece (or scouring, as it’s known in spinner parlance) actually takes half a dozen stops, all of which involve waiting a half hour or so in between. So, it was actually a nice break from the work I was doing, which involved reformatting Excel spreadsheets all day. Exciting, no?

I decided it was time to go ahead and scour the Rambouillet / Merino cross that I bought at the Estes Park wool market. Now, full disclosure here, this was my first full-sized fleece from a full-sized sheep. Previously, I bought a lamb’s fleece and half a ram’s fleece and have successfully scoured both. I quickly discovered that this was a critter of a whole different scale and that my previous method (neatly filling a large colander and soaking it, then lifting out to change the water) was going to require a too many batches.

After all, this is a water-intensive process because each fleece requires three soaks in soapy water followed by two rinses. Water being a fairly precious commodity here in the West, especially this year, I decided it was time to be a good citizen and figure out how to do this without requiring quite so many batches.

So, I stopped by Target over my lunch hour and picked up a jumbo laundry bag. You know, the kind that they make you get for your kids to take to summer camp so that their laundry gets some air and doesn’t come home smelling like the inside of gym bag that’s been left in the car in July. (Even if it usually does anyway…even the best plans can’t overcome kid sweat). But I digress.

I also picked up a large bendy tub that would allow me to put the fleece (in the laundry bag) somewhere to drain while I was draining the yucky water and running fresh. (Note my use of the technical term yucky. I hope you’re taking notes here. 😉 )

It started well. Here’s the fleece in the bag, ready to head into the water for its first bath.

Sheep in a bag (or at least the fleece thereof).

Then I put it into the first soapy water bath and pressed it down. So far so good.

The first hot soapy bath.

Here’s where it got a bit complicated. You see, I failed to realize this beforehand, but a full fleece, loaded with water, is H.E.A.V.Y. It smells like a barnyard and it drips a LOT of water. So I go to lift it out of the water and it feels as though it is stuck. It’s not actually stuck, obviously, it’s just that a full fleece weighs maybe two or three times as much as a lamb’s fleece or half a ram. I get it halfway up, it’s still dripping all over, smells awful, and I can’t get it to the bucket because of all the water pouring off of it. I can’t lift it any higher and I can’t get a hand free to let the water out of the sink. I am stuck.

I was lucky (or at least you could call it that) that this week my husband is working from home. He came along at about that time, saw my distress, and offered to help. Now, if you know my husband, you know that while most husbands would be very smirky about this sort of thing, he totally took it in stride. Here is how the conversation went:

Me: Wow, this is heavy. Can you help me get it out of the sink?

Husband: Sure, no problem. Lifts the fleece up. Wow, that really smells bad.

Me: Ummm…yeah. Thinks to self, he only just now noticed that? I’ve been washing fleeces for weeks. I guess now my secret is out.

With some maneuvering, we got it out of the sink and into its next rinse. I said thank you, and he headed back to his computer. We would literally, rinse and repeat until we finished the process.

Now, I don’t think I’m bragging when I say that for a spinner, the perfect husband is a guy who thinks nothing of driving across the state to pick up a spinning wheel (even one that belongs to someone else), making multiple trips to Greyhound to ship said wheel, and doesn’t mind the fact that one whole corner of the living room is taken up by wheels and the other corner by half-finished knitting projects. The fact that he also doesn’t complain about handling drippy fleeces or that our laundry room currently smells like a barnyard is pure icing on the cake.

Thanks, honey. How nice to have you home this week. 🙂

A Fiber-ing We Go, A Fiber-ing We Go

So, this might come as a shock to the readers who’ve joined us recently because of the digital photography, but this is really a knitting blog. Well, at least it’s a blog that sometimes features knitting, as well as a bit about antique spinning wheels, West Highland terriers, hiking, nature photography, current events and other random interests of mine.

It’s been an event-filled week around here. First, we are watching the Colorado wildfires with anxious interest. Yes, I did say fires, plural. There is now a second fire south of us, west of Colorado Springs. My husband and I took a drive in the mountains on Sunday and drove past the community where it was burning. Firefighters from several communities have been mobilized and they are doing their best to ensure that it stays a small fire. At the same time, while the High Park Fire near Fort Collins is now 50% contained (which is good news), almost 200 homes have been lost, not to mention thousands of acres of forest. Everything is just so dry this year. Please pray for rain.

On the happy side of things, the insurance adjuster was out yesterday and while many of our friends have significant damage from the recent hailstorms, we seem to have escaped relatively unscathed. I felt badly for the adjuster though, climbing on my roof in 100 degree heat, but he is probably used to it and didn’t seem to mind.

The contractors are here putting in a new deck and that has also been an interesting process. I’ve done a lot of home improvements in the past, both myself and with the help of contractors. First, they hit a sprinkler line in a not-obvious place on the first hole they dug. That was just plain bad luck. On Saturday, they were here pouring the caissons and kept having to retreat to their cars because of lightning. (No rain, though, darn it. We could do without the lightning but we sure need the rain). Today, they are taking the old deck off and getting ready to frame the new one. The pups were going crazy over having these strange people with saws on the deck right outside the door but seem to have accepted it as normal now. After about an hour’s work, the micro-deck (as we called it) is gone and they are lining up the boards to start framing.

In my knitting life, I just cast on a new sweater. After a lot of deliberation, I decided on this one, the Tappan Zee from Knitty Spins. I’m a few rows into the yoke and making good progress but my count is off so that will take some investigation. I’m making the sweater in a lovely light blue hand-dyed alpaca. (Hence, the short sleeves, I tend to get hot anyway and alpaca is warm.)

Here’s the picture from Knitty. (That’s not me in the picture – I’m not nearly courageous enough to have hair that red…also my sweater will be blue).

The Tappan Zee sweater from KnittySpins. Mine will be in blue alpaca. If you click the image, it should take you to Knitty’s site, which is a wonderful place…

In case you’re also interested in making this sweater and the photo link doesn’t work, try this: http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEss10/KSPATTtappanzee.php

I’ve been a terrible fiber hoarder lately too. In addition to the three fleeces I wrote about a few weeks ago (half a ram, one lamb, one alpaca blanket), someone gave me two more alpaca blankets, which I had processed at the local mill. The backlog for my drum carder was simply growing too fast. Last weekend, we went to the Estes Park Wool Market and I bought yet another fleece, this one a rambouillet / merino cross, which means the fleece is uber-soft and a lovely cream color. (You’re thinking cabled Aran sweater? Funny, me too…) That fleece is still sitting around tormenting the Westies because it smells very sheepy and I need to wash it. I’ve also started spinning the grey fleece from Jack, the aforementioned ram.

We are headed to Blacksheep Gathering in Oregon this weekend and will have the camera in tow, so don’t despair, photo buffs, as there will be more pictures coming.

Meanwhile, I’ll be away from the blog for a few days and I didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten about you. How could I forget? I hope to have lots of stories and photos to share next week. Happy fiber-ing everyone!!

 

 

 

Adventures in Drum Carding

Okay, so first I have to brag just a little because, well, I’m just so danged proud of these kids. It was an awesome day and we are so excited for them.

The Graduates. Their parents are SO proud.

I’ve been continuing to wash the lamb’s fleece that I bought and spent some time playing with my new camera to take some fleecy beauty shots.

Jane’s Fleece Part Deux – Getting ready to go into the scouring water. I love the multi-colored look to this fleece.

In other news, my drum carder arrived and we’ve been having great fun with it! My friend Jean came over last night to knit and play with fiber. It was a great evening; I always really enjoy her company.

So we started with a big bag of some kind of ratty looking fiber that had been washed and dried. It looked like this:

Scoured but not yet carded. Ready set go!

We ran it through the carder twice, after first opening the locks by hand so it would be easier for the carder to separate.

My new drum carder, from the folks at Brother Drumcarder in Silverton, OR.

By the end of the night, I had three batts carded and we had made hardly a dent into the fiber supply.

Three batts, ready to spin. I love the color in this; it’s going to be beautiful once it’s spun.

And a bit of VM (vegetative matter) on the counter.

Just a little bit of VM left at the end. I think I may also want to follow my husband’s suggestion and put newspapers down next time because the counter is also a bit sticky from the lanolin in the wool.

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Progress!

Hi all –

I’m a little pressed for time today so I thought I’d just give you a quick update on how all the various projects are coming. I’ll admit, a bit sheepishly (pun intended) that this is as much for my own benefit as yours – since having to report the progress on my projects keeps me motivated to get them finished.

First off, meet the lovely Lady Jane, the lamb whose fleece went into the scouring process a couple of days ago. I’ve only gotten half of it washed at the moment, but I am delighted with the texture of her wool as well as the combination of black, brown and grey that she has. This is going to make some lovely yarn.

Here it is about to be washed:

Jane’s fleece, ready to be washed. She is a lamb from Sister Sheep, purchased at the Recycled Lamb fleece market.

Here it is drying. I love how this has the combination of brown, black and grey.

Jane’s fleece laid out for drying.

The hand quilting project is coming along nicely too. I have two rows of quilting left before I can bind it and it will be finished!

The hand-quilting project. Each row takes about an hour which means I need about 3 more hours of effort to finish this off. (Quilting + binding).

And last, but certainly not least, the baby blanket. It is coming along nicely but so, I hear is the baby, so I need to keep moving forward on this. I have about 8 inches of knitting the pattern to go, then a couple of inches of edging. (Special thanks to my friend Jen who rescued me last night when I totally messed up the edging and could not figure out how to fix it. I was pretty frustrated but she is a genius).

The baby blanket. Baby is due imminently so I need to get this finished!!

And of course, a little gratuitious Westiness because after all, who doesn’t need more Westie in their life? In this case, Chloe, having a nap but not all that certain about this noisy camera thing.

Chloe having a nap on another recently finished project. They love this afghan, must be warm because there is virtually always a dog on it.

Happy weekend everyone! I’m out a day early to celebrate my daughter’s college graduation. YAY! See you next week!

Dirty, Dirty Boy

So, if you were reading along yesterday, you already know that I indulged myself a bit over the weekend and ended up with a couple of fleeces. (Well, yes it was three if you were counting).

So the first fleece up for scouring was from Jack, the adult sheep. I bought half of this fleece and my friend Brady bought the other half. Jack got picked to be first because he was winning the prize for most smelly.

Scouring is actually pretty easy, the key thing being to avoid agitation of the fibers unless you want to end up with a big chunk of felt instead of fiber you can spin from.

First, however, the fleece had to undergo a thorough inspection.

The local fleece inspection team. They conducted a thorough investigation and found the suspect to be stinky.

Next, I gathered my tools and supplies. (This is about half of the fleece to be scoured; I washed it in two batches to make handling easier).

Essential tools for washing fleece. I will note, however, that my husband has informed me that the colander will never make pasta again. I can't say that I blame him.

Make sure your assistant is close by in case you need assistance.

David in his natural state. Yes, that is Call of Duty. This really isn't a two person job...although he did help out with the camera when I got stuck because of wet hands.

Run lots of hot soapy water. I used straight hot water from the tap although some people boil water and add it as well. Either way, I wouldn’t want to stick my hands in there.  (Note that there’s no fleece in the water yet. The best way to make felt is soap + hot water + agitation).

Pay close attention to this part. You'll be doing it over and over and over...

When the water is taller than your colander, load the colander full of fiber and gently push it into the water. With the spoon, gently push the fleece down into the water until it is soaked through. Be careful doing this and don’t stir unless you want felt instead of spinning fiber. (I hear that accidental felt makes good cat toys, although I don’t have a cat so that would not help me much).

Gettin' it wet...

Let soak 15 minutes in the hot water. As you can see in this photo, Jack was a greasy beastie. He also must have loved to roll in the dirt because the water came off brown as well as greasy with every wash.

Check out that water. Great for...well, nothing really. But the lanolin treatment I got from handling the fleece was great for my hands.

Lift the colander out of the sink and drain off the water. Run fresh soapy water and repeat this process. Usually you soak with detergent twice then rinse twice, but since this fleece was so greasy, I soaked with soap it three times. After the first wash, I realized that if I put some jugs in the sink to displace the water, the sink would fill faster and the process wouldn’t take as much water. (It’s a really big sink).

Then begin the rinsing. Same technique, run the water into the sink and then put in the colander holding the fleece. Lift out to drain, then rinse and refill the sink. In the first rinse, add a hefty glug of vinegar to neutralize the alkaline of the detergent.

Here’s what Jack’s fleece looked like in the first rinse:

First rinse with vinegar. Note how yellow the water is. That's lanolin, folks.

Second rinse, plain water.

Final rinse, plain water. Time to set up the drying rack!

Drying station. This is also where I block sweaters and other hand-knits.

Handling carefully, gently squeeze out as much of the water as you can. If you like, you can use towels to block it out, but I prefer to just squeeze it gently and then spread it out and let it drip off so I don’t felt it by moving it too much. I’m a beginner at this and also a bit superstitious this way.

Spread the fleece gently so that the air can circulate through. Let air-dry naturally, turning and spreading the fleece as it dries so that it gets dry all the way through.

You will probably need to turn and spread the fleece several times until all of the wet spots are dried through. Also, while drying, watch for fiber thievery if you have pets. My Westies usually have no interest in yarn or spinning fiber but I discovered that a freshly washed fleece still smells sheepy enough that even the most earnest Westie can’t resist it. You’ve been warned.

Once it’s dry, pack it into a breathable container such as a paper grocery bag, cardboard box or one of those reusable fabric bags from the grocery store. You can pack them in plastic bags if you prefer but it’s better if it’s breathable unless you are absolutely sure it’s not damp. Here, Chuffy guards the results.

Chuffy protects our freshly washed fleece from any marauding fiber thieves that might be in the neighborhood.

Next step – Carding! But that’s a story for another day because my new drum carder hasn’t arrived yet. I’m excited, I can’t wait until it gets here!

Happy Fiber Days!

So, on Saturday my good friend Brady was kind enough to go along with me on my very first fleece buying adventure. I’ve thought about buying whole fleeces for a long time, and even had my friend Kim show me the basics at one point, but never quite got up the courage to do it until this weekend. Brady grew up on a ranch in Wyoming and he’s a very knowledgeable spinner, so I was delighted that he was able to go and help me pick my fleece(s).

I can’t even quite say what was different this time that I was ready to dive in and buy a fleece. They’re a big commitment because you bring home this bag of hair that smells like the barnyard, and with a lot of work and some tools it ends up being yarn you can start your project with.  I guess my spinning skills have grown such that I was ready to take the plunge, since when I first started spinning I recall saying that I would never be interested in prepping my own fiber. Why would I, when you can buy it already cleaned and prepared? Because it’s cool, that’s why.

This particular event was held in the front yard of the local yarn shop in Golden, CO, called the Recycled Lamb. This is a lovely little shop, where they teach not only knitting and crocheting but also spinning and weaving.

The day started off with a bang (literally) as several transformers in the street blew up just as we were crossing the parking lot, leaving the shop in the dark and with no working cash registers, but the shop owner and her staff were gracious and flexible, so people continued to shop in the semi-dark and visiting the shop was kind of fun this way. (I will have to go back soon when the lights are on, so that I can see what I missed).

Outside on the lawn, however, business carried on as if nothing had happened. There was a big table fully of sheepy fleeces and mohair (goat) locks.

Lots of lovely wool fleeces to choose from, and some nice mohair locks too.

There were also some mohair goats for the kids to pet. (Okay, I petted them too. Who could resist? They are adorable…)

Mohair goats...attracting lots of kids. (Pun intended)

There was a big display of alpaca products from a local alpaca farm.

A nice assortment of alpaca products. Brady found some lovely cria (baby alpaca) and I bought a whole blanket from an alpaca named Ashleigh.

Everyone was having fun petting the alpacas too. There’s a reason we love to knit with their fiber, they are super-soft.

Alpacas from Ancient Treasures.

Oh, and just for fun, a bagpiper dropped by to add a little music. I have always liked bagpipes as long as they were a ways away (they are loud!). Brady, however, is not a big fan.

A bagpiper dropped by to liven things up a bit.

My haul? One chestnut alpaca blanket from Ancient Treasures, one lamb’s fleece and half an adult fleece from Sister Sheep.

When I got home, I started straight away on washing the adult fleece because it was super-stinky and I don’t want to store it that way. But, that’s my story for tomorrow.

Happy fiber days, everyone!