Coming Off The Wheel
They say you're not done with surprises until you're dead. Today I was getting together a package of some Alpaca cria (first shearing) and some Border Leichester lamb fleece I purchased online, to send to a small custom mill in Alberta for washing and blending into spinning fiber. Imagine my surprise when I opened the opaque white bag of lamb fleece to discover Icelandic fleece!! How did I know it was Icelandic? It has a long hairy second coat and a downy soft under fleece. So WHAT did I wash yesterday??? The Border Leichester lamb fleece! Eeep! It seems my seller was in as much of a hurry as I get into sometimes and labeled the white bags with the wrong names! *sigh!* I thought it was pretty soft and short for Icelandic! I was dumb enough to think the seller had already pulled the hair out of it! Double *D'uh!!*
Soooo I got the parcel together, including a note to Anne at A & B Fiberworks that the lamb fleece had already been washed (I hope she can tell, without the note). I have heard good things about their work so I am guardedly optimistic. I sent my llama fiber to Twisted Sisters Mill in Alberta because they have dehairing equipment (A&B don't) - but - I found out - to my dismay, there is a 1 year waiting list so although I sent my fiber off it will be shearing time next spring before I see it again. Because A & B are a new mill, just starting out, it won't take a year to get my spinning fiber back and that made me feel much better.
Soooo I got the parcel together, including a note to Anne at A & B Fiberworks that the lamb fleece had already been washed (I hope she can tell, without the note). I have heard good things about their work so I am guardedly optimistic. I sent my llama fiber to Twisted Sisters Mill in Alberta because they have dehairing equipment (A&B don't) - but - I found out - to my dismay, there is a 1 year waiting list so although I sent my fiber off it will be shearing time next spring before I see it again. Because A & B are a new mill, just starting out, it won't take a year to get my spinning fiber back and that made me feel much better.
Anyways, plying is going well. It's so nice to have something not blue coming off the wheel. The singles with the Fire Moss were not exactly what I had in mind. I intended to make it a 2 ply worsted to chunky weight, which meant bigger singles. I only got about half of it spun into a worsted weight. The rest came out to fingering weight. There's a lot to be said about not being in the same state of mind every time you sit down to spin. When I'm tired, my singles tend to wander into my default size which is now much finer than it used to be. So I ended up with 2 very different skeins. One skein, about 4.75 ounces was 235 yards, worsted weight. The second, about 3.5 ounces was 250 yds, a fingering weight. The one thing I really liked was how the brown and red and green melded into such a nice mix. No jarring blobs of bright color, just a sort of blurry brownish blend. So that's been my day. Cheers all! 
Posted by Gloria Patre at 7/28/2010 4:47 PM 
Categories: Yarn, Spinning, Fiber
Tags: merino south african top cotswold handspun
Categories: Yarn, Spinning, Fiber
Tags: merino south african top cotswold handspun
Love how the Fire Moss came out. I haven't touched my spinning all summer. I've been beading. You are inspiring me to get back to the roving waiting for me.
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