First Fleece of the year!

Posted Friday February 2, 2007 (in Spinning)

It’s it beautiful!?!

awe

From a ewe named “Awe” at Twin Willows Farm this is a white Border Leicester fleece. I don’t have it yet, but it’s paid for and will be on it’s way soon! :D

Well that figures!

Posted Friday February 2, 2007 (in Spinning)

I got an email today from the lady who had her Rose for sale at a reasonable price (well compared to new anyways) saying she still had it available!! When she last emailed me she said it was “pending with several backups” and the person she was holding it for would pay at the beginning of Feb. I took that to pretty much mean my odds of being able to get it were nearly non-existant, since she had someone promising they wanted it and I wasn’t even “next” in line! So I went ahead and ordered mine after I sold my Traditional.

Oh well, I could have saved around $100, but I’m still getting a new wheel so I don’t care ;) Plus mine will be “new” new, not just new to me :D

On other news, I carded some of the “evil merino” and it still isn’t any better. I spun about and ounce and a half of it, and while it was *better* it was still pretty crappy compared to all the other merino I’ve ever spun. I realized part of why that stuff was giving me so many problems. The staple is really short in sections (close to 2″ or less) and there are also some short cuts that have been processed throughout.. I know this from the teeny little fuzzballs that formed as I was carding. So, now I Have a little skein of appriximately 90 yards of 3-ply DK/sportweight I don’t know what to do with… and probably 2-3oz of the top left that I may just toss (shhh - don’t tell anyone!!).

IMG_1973

It’s not that great, fairly lumpy, but that’s partially due to the crappy fiber (I tried to pick out as much of the gunky parts as I could) and partially due to my inconsistancy in spinning, since the weight of the single for this didn’t really lend itself well to being spun at the 7.1:1 ratio my Hitchhiker provides (about twice that would have been MUCH better).. I had to keep reminding myself it needed more twist so there were some underspun bits. The plied yarn ended up a tad overspun, as I’m really inept at navajo-plying, and kept taking too long to make my chained loops ;)