Monday, April 6, 2015

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!

2 comments:

  1. I love the rustic yarns as much as the polished handspuns ;) Your yarn is very pretty (and the story behind it makes it even better!). I recently bought 2 kgs of alpaca via facebook, but I've also bought fleece from Kleieindraad, there's also the wolplantage. There's actually a lot of places but I'm not sure if you can actually get a sample before buying.
    Please let us know if you find a good one :D

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  2. Wow - wat een productie. Heel benieuwd hoe dit voelt!

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