hello stranger

Hi, how is everybody?  Washed some more of that fleece and have decided that the rest of it is going to be mulch!  how is everybody doing on their final woolen projects?  I'm feeling good about mine and hope to actually have it done without rushing at the last minute( if I say it out loud is has to come true right?)  Becky

I have washed all the fleece that we got from the local farmer (during class). It was very dirty and full of vegetable matter. I washed it 4 times. some of the vegetable matter fell out during pickling and carding and more has come out with the spinning. my singles still have a small amount of vegetable matter in them. I am using the fleece for practice. right now I continuing to learn the drop spindle (it was new to me at class). I have not done any homework yet, but my goal is to have the dyeing done, not the mounting, etc just the dyeing, by next Tuesday when a friend from Edmonton arrives.

I now own some raw fleece form 2 sources. I ordered some white and grey Romney from Sunday Creek farm. We used some of it in class. Then I went to a fiber show in central NY and bought some black Border Leister that I thought looked nice. I saw Stella there! She was a participant. And I also saw Kim!

Re:washing

Tried to post this as a comment but for some reason it wouldn't let me......
Let us know how it comes out! I need to get my butt in gear on something. Hopefully going to the guild meeting tonight. Harriet Boon is giving a talk on Bandhani - tie dyeing Indian style, using natural dye. Sounds fun!

In the grease assignment

Hi everyone!

Andrea here...

I spent the very wonderful evening last night outside and decided to flick card all of the corriedale fleece we got from julia for our in the grease assignment.  At first i was a bit disappointed in the crustiness of the tips.  My tips all had 1.5 inches of hard crust.  So hard you couldn't really separate the locks with your fingers very well.  But lo and behold, a thorough flick carding session opened them all up fairly nicely.  I also snapped about 1/4 inch of each tip completely off.  

Another thing I noticed was that the lock changed colour and crimp as it went from the base to the tip.

Anyway, it's all nice and fluffy now, waiting for me to get over my mental block in taking the first step do doing this assignment.  One reminder though for everyone. ...  separate a lock out BEFORE you start flicking for mounting purposes... I forgot, so now i'll just have to mount a lock that's been flicked and try to describe the crustiness instead of being able to show it. :)

Happy Spinning!
Andrea

Washing and washing and rinsing fleece!!

Hi all!! I've been sooo busy washing my bag of fleece - the one that was dropped off by the local shepherd/ farmer. Has anyone else tackled it yet?? It's been quite an experience. I didn't get to filling a bag till it had been out for a bit , so maybe the first picks were good??? The stuff I have seems to have a nice crimp but was VERY dirty and full of bits of vegetable matter.

Becky - have you done anything yet with the bag of leftovers you and Brigitte hauled away??

I soaked it outside in rainwater for a few days - and changed the water at least once - got some nice brown water to use on my gardens. Hope I get some super tomatoes this year!!

Hello Everybody!

Hope you are all doing well!...After getting feedback from you I have decided to go this route. For those of you who prefer to do things by Email you can subscribe to the blog and get it right in your inbox, or we'll "see" you on Spinn Mailing list.
I have also signed up to Ravelry, but thought that this site could be a bit more "intimate" and just for our class.

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