FLUFF 2 WEAR

Good Morning Blog!

I was not ignoring you, just busy.  Monday I taught a spinning class! It turned out to be really fun.  The ladies brought in their Mach I, I brought my Elizabeth II, and my Norweigan plying wheel.  The Mach I is scotch tension and works really well.  I have the Mach II and really love it.  The Elizabeth has both double drive and scotch tension on her, the Norweigan has Irish tension.  I brought them because of the different tensioning systems to demonstrate and explain.  Then everyone got to try them with the same fiber to see the difference and similarities.  Paula was really surprised at the different feel just between the Mach and Liz.  Completely different treadling systems too.  Liz is single treadle with footman to a great wheel.  Mach is double treadle to a rocker system that drives the great wheel, and it's great wheel is far heavier than Liz's.

Next we spent a great deal of time on fiber prep.  Well prepared fibers are much easier to spin.  Plain and simple.  I had some poorly prepared shetland that I let them try, then combed it and tried it again.  Made a world of difference.  We carded some wool to see how to use the carders and feel the difference in combed and carded preps.  I think the general consensus was that the combed was nice to spin, but the carded made learning the long draw easier.  We tried several long wools, then started switching back and forth between the long wools and the shorter wools.  The difference was apparent and Bonnie liked the long wools.  Paula was fascinated with all of them.  One thing everyone agreed on: Walter was the favorite!  I do love Walter.  Walter is a BFL/Wenslydale cross.  His coat is soft like the bfl, but has the length and silkiness of the wenslydale.

It all went well, hugs all around when we finally got done.  Really fun to teach!

Now, to knitting class on Wednesday.  That is a continuing thing, actually more like a knitting club and I'm there to help with mistakes and teach the newbies.

Good Morning Blog!

    Yesterday I tried a new way of washing some wool and it came out wonderfully!!  Mike suggested using two wire baskets in our large deep sink and they came in!

    I used some luscious corriedale, deep brown color, from Cary.  She describes it as medium soft.  First off, into a bag.  I still like using the loungerie bag to make sure I don't lose any fiber down the sink drain.  About 3/4 pound works fine for this sink.  Yours may be a common size kitchen sink and in such case I would recommend no more than 1/4 pound.  Filled the sink with the hottest water from the tank, it's setting is nearly on high.  Added 4 oz of Dawn and plunged the wool in the basket into the water.  Gently turned the wool over and put the other basket cross wise on top of the first one.  I did this to keep all the wool under the water instead of letting some of it float to the top as previously done.  After 15 minutes, turned the top basket and raised it all out of the water, gently compressing the two baskets together.  Water change with no soap and back in the sink for another 15 minutes.  Only change is to not turn the fleece over, just leave it as it sits in the basket.  Third is another soap wash with only 2 oz Dawn, fourth is a rinse, fifth is a 1 oz Dawn soak, sixth is another clear rinse.  Lastly, a clear soak with about a cup of vinegar in it.  This help to re-establish the natural pH of the fiber.

   Everything came out squeaky clean, and most importantly, still in lock formation without laying out as locks!  This was a big plus that was not planned for!  And soft, oh my goodness it is soft and smells so good now that it is dry.  Vinegar smell dissipates in the drying process.  To dry the wool I scattered it on a 4x4 screen frame that Mike made for me, suspended it between two chairs and put a fan blowing straight up underneath the frame.  Dries anything but cormo over night.

   I wash the llama and alpaca before I card and spin it up.  Keeps my carder cleaner and gears from getting any more dirt on them than necessary.  These fleeces are washed in TEPID water and as little agitation as possible.  They are washed in my shampoo as they have no lanolin to strip out like the wool does.  And they only get two wash cycles, not three.  They do however get a rinse in vinegar.  Vinegar helps to restore the shine to camelids as well as rebalance the pH.  I do find that alpaca and llama felt a lot easier than wool does, so very gently is the way to go.

  Happy fleece washing!

Good Morning!

What a weekend!  Got a bunch of plying, blending and spinning done.

 

Saturday I blended up 11 oz of llama into a 90% llama and merino/silk blend for Mike.  He'd wanted a deep dark brown alpaca, but I talked him into using llama.  Val Carmichael of Agape Llamas in Corbin, KY, has some of the nicest llama fiber I've ever found.  AND she happens to be a dear friend.  She let me have the fiber off of Major for Mike.  Ran it thru the carder twice for each 1 oz batt and boy, talk about wonderful stuff!  Cannot wait to get started spinning on it!  Mike informed me though that he had enough yarn to work on for a while, so have permission to run it thru to the back burner. 

 

Then I ran off 1000 yards of 3 ply Targhee from the bobbins into skeins.  Really soft fiber and the yarn turned out nice and soft too.  I left it in natural white for now, but may dye it to make some interesting patterning in knitted scarves.  There is enough for Mike to do some weaving too!  This Targhee is next to the skin soft.  The breed originated in Idaho at the U of I research center.  Being from Idaho, I thought this was an interesting fact!

 

Patty gave me 4 oz of a beautiful chocolate brown generic wool to play with, blend and spin and see what I thought of it.  Nice, medium stapled fiber, bouncy crimp, nice handle.  I like it.  Blended up 1 oz. each with shetland, silk, cashmere, and angora.  Each one went thru the carder about 4 times to make sure it was well blended.  Mike picked out what he likes, the cashmere blend.  All are 75/25 blends.  I started spinning on the silk blend during the New Orleans Saints football game.  BTW, Saints won and still undefeated this year.  Back to fibers.  This silk is spinning up very very fine.  Hoping to get enough yardage to ply and make a lace shawl.  Though the silk is longer than the wool, with it's crimp, it is hanging onto the silk nicely and working up great.  Fun stuff!  I let Patty know about it and she seemed tickled.  Have some more coming, in white, to play with.

 

We are trying to start somewhat of a co-op with about 4-5 of us, buying fiber in bulk for blending,spinning and selling purposes.  At the price that they are asking for just a little bit it would be cost prohibitive, but at a reduced volume rate it will work out better.  These are all processed fibers, loose and not in rovings, but very well separated.  Not sure which mill Patty is getting them at, but word is that they are willing to work with us.

 

In the meantime, I will continue to blend alpaca and llama with the merino/silk blend to get things completed for Val.  And start to do some more blending of fibers for my traveling store and some for the etsy and website.  Etsy and website are still under production.  I wish the etsy would take regular pictures instead of having to scale them down.  Reducing pixels is not something I know how to do.  All I need to do is get pix taken and sent to Kim to put up on the web site, and that store will be open.

 

Have a fibery day!

Hi  Blog

Being a military Mom, I am horrified by the shooting in Fort Hood.  I wish that people on watch lists were taken more seriously.  Nate was in Little Rock, was the one to first call 911 when that militant shot two army boot camp graduates, killing one of them.  He'd been on the watch list for 2 years!  Nate's safely in school and off recruiter duty now, lives on base where it is supposed to be safe.  Wonder if there are any watch list folks in VA?

 

On a happier note, Emily is here again today.  Always busy (!) and talkative.  Ate a big breakfast and is winding up good for a nice long nap, I hope!

 

Finished the Christmas sock, need to call her and let her know it is ready.  Finally (!) got a check from the designer and Mike is depositing it for me now.  I'll miss making the beautifully innovative designs, but won't miss the pressure of knitting for a deadline.  After saying that the Beast needed to be remade and changing her mind, again, I am just burned out.  Prefer to make stuff of my will and time, self imposed deadlines.  Guess it is true, you cannot make your wonderful hobby into a business, it will kill the hobby and you'll hate to do it.  Almost happened here.

 

Bunnies are doing great.  Ashe is blowing the heck out of his coat so guess am going to have to put him on the top of the list to be done.  Babies keep growing too.  I thought they were done, but even without their coats they are getting bigger!  The lightest blue one is the sweetest, has her mother's personality.  Of course, that made her my favorite one. 

Good Evening Blog,

Today was a nice day.  Weather is great, had knitting classes today.  Everyone is doing so well!  Have a beginning knitter who finished her first sock and had such a surprised look on her face when she put it on and it fit!  She even said she'd been expecting the worse but this was great!  Big inner grin!!!

 

Finished the vest for that designer.  This is the last of the knitting I am going to do for her.  I just have too many other things to do, like take care of my precious Emily, and have to make a choice.  Not a difficult one to do!

 

Knitting on the toy soldier Christmas sock for a friend, about done with it too.  Yay!!  Next on the list is Emily's quilt.  I just about cannot wait to get started on it, it's so cute!

 

My new order of goats milk soap came in today.  All really nice scents too.  Very pleased with the selections.

 

Well, gotta go.  Have to get ready for my baby in the morning!