big box

Yesterday a big box arrived....

 



Getting parcels in the mail is always exciting, but this BIG box really made everyone in the house interested! What was in there? My husband knows me well enough, but the girls were really curious!

Here's a hint...

when you now are saying wool, you're quite right!

After last blog i wrote i went on a fleece search, i asked around, found a few webshops. But it is a bit tricky (oh my tricky... that reminds me of tricky woo of james herriot :) ) to buy a fleece online, without seeing the fleece yourself.  What a good fleece in someone's opinion is could be for me a dirty felted full of vegetable matter fleece..

But finally i found a man who has real passion for his sheep, and it was a breed i never heard about or spun for that matter.

He has Kerry Hill sheep, he brought his sheep 22 years ago to the Netherlands himself.

He was willing to send me two fleeces, very cheap only € 4,50 for a fleece.

 

 

 

 

 

This wool is very soft!! The only other fleeces i have bought were texelaar, swifter and clun forest. And this is so different, not coarse at all.

 

Today was a warm windy day, so with my two helpers we searched the fleece. Oh look there are my lesser celandine, i love this plant, vibrant green leaves and happy yellow flowers, they don't open when it's cloudy and grey, but when the sun shines they open as far as they can!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

my oldest loves the feeling of unwashed fleece! She also likes the smell.

But she also asked i we could wash part of the fleeces today. Offcourse we could! I filled a box with hot water with a bit of soap.

 

 

 



Look what a great helpers i have!!

 

After washing we used the fence of our '' guinea pigs and rabbit play outside space'' to hang the wool to dry...

 

 

 





 

 

The rest of the afternoon we spend making gigant bubbles, so easy to make and so much fun to do!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

tonight i used my handcarders to card a few bits of fiber... oooh my it's so soft and bouncy!! I'm really looking forward spinning this!
But that's a problem.... i still have a projects going on...  first my summer shawl of the KAL at the dutchwooldiva group on ravelry. And offcourse my cardigan i'm knitting of the handspun swifterlamb wool, i have to do lots of spinning and knitting before that's finished.... and i'm not good with multiple wips..

now i'm wondering i haven't showed my cardigan on here yet. I will try to do it soon, but now it's time for bed.

Bye!

 

 









mary had a little lamb...

Hi everyone,  i do hope you all have had a wonderfull weekend.

Last week i was reading the blog of a ravelry friend, she has a special way with words and it's a real pleasure to read about everything she does! And she inspired me!

Last week i went to bed a bit early and decided to look around her blog for a bit. She was working with a raw fleece. And suddenly there and then i decided that the next morning i wanted to get my lambsfleece. Well it was way past my bedtime by then...

The fleece was stached in a closet next to the laundry machine. So ''getting the bag out'' involved a lot of arm twisting, getting stuck twice. But finally i got it!

Last year i bought this fleece, from a alpaca farm in the neighbourhood. They had an advertisement for raw swifter lambsfleece.

Quite cheap (oh my i actually wrote sheep instead of cheap, sounds almost the same, made me giggle)  so i placed an order for 2 kilo's i think.

When it arrived i spend some nice time in the garden with my oldest looking trough the fleece, sorting the short bits and poo bits out, there was actually not much of poo in it.
After sorting i put it in bags and forgot a bit about it.



But now i've got a big fill bag next to my chair, my louet hand carders, which where a present from my grandmothers sister,

 

 

 and i made little fluffy clouds of unwashed raw fleece.

 

And i gave it my best shot, first time spinning woolen, so you have a little fluffy cloud in your hand, and when the twist gets in you pull your arm backwords to create a single. I like the technique, it goves a bouncy yarn, it's a quick way of spinning. But in my case i have little control over my single.

I do like neat thin singles, and now it has more bumps and lumps... also due to the fact it's raw wool with a very short length.
I guess most locks are about 4 cm's or shorter..

But i do enjoy this spinning, and i want to knit a cardigan from it. But first i want to dye the yarn. I actually planned on getting some foodcoloring last saturday, but after a night of hardly any sleep i decided on a slow day with not to much activity. To bad because this afternoon i did had time to dye yarn, i actually was a bit frustrated with myself, wanting to dye and no dye in the house, or vinegar ;)
So now  my spun yarn is still white... i hope to change that tommorow!! I already have spun and plied 4 skeins.

 But i do enjoy this spinning project, so i defenitely want another fleece, but where to find one? If anyone knows a good shop or has a fleece or part of a fleece for sale?? Please let me know!