As The Yarn Turns

Not in Maryland

Nope, I'm right here in Alabama. Judging from the blogs and message boards a number of other folks haven't gone to the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival either. I feel like I'm in the extreme minority though. As much as I would like to go, it's just not in the cards this year. Trust me, it's much worse here where there are no fiber festivals for many miles. I understand from Kay of Mason-Dixon Knitting that Julia of Moth Heaven has suggested that us "stay at homes" post about ourselves and our weekend. Otherwise it will be pretty darned quiet around here until everyone gets back and rested up. Plus it's better than moping around. So in that spirit, here is my weekend.

Friday night we went to see the premier show of "Speechless" starring local entertainer and magician Steve Trash. I wasn't quite sure I was in the mood for something like that and I truly had to drag myself out of the house. It turned out to be a fun show for a good cause and a good start to the weekend. In the end I was glad I went. On Saturday we're usually a little more active than we were today. Normally I would get up early and go out to our local knitting group for some knitting comradery and Rick would go out into the garage to build something. (He's always building something.) Sometimes we have other things going on but otherwise that's our weekend. But this past week seemed like four weeks packed into one week, and not particularly pleasant weeks at that. Nope I was a complete slug this morning and didn't go anywhere. Rick was out this morning so I had the house to myself. I spent the morning drinking coffee, eating cereal and catching up on messages and blogs. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. It was wonderful and just what I needed. By noon I was revived and refreshed. It's a beautiful weekend here so I went out and checked on the plants I bought last weekend. They are all settling in well and growing new leaves. I also discovered that my irises were in full bloom. They are absolutely gorgeous.

One of my flowering vines didn't come back this year, which is disappointing, but the irises are trying their best to make up for it. Gardening isn't exactly one of my strengths. By then it was time to grab a bite to eat and start knitting. The edging on the Shetland Tea Shawl has almost been neglected this week. I've had a hard time squeezing in some quality knitting time until this afternoon. I actually made some good progress on the edging interspersed with short naps.

I think this means a good start to the coming week.

by Sydney  |

It's a World Gone Mad

That's right, it's Jennifer Wilbanks fever. Have you been looking for the pattern for the blanket that Jennifer Wilbanks put over her head or maybe you would rather just have a piece of toast with a likeness of her on it? Yes, they are all out there. You've got to love Annie Modesitt.

In more fibery news, the fleece has been washed, dried, and the ends flicked through a bit. I really like this Romney fleece. It's far softer than I expected for Romney and it has some nice crimp in the locks. I'm pretty pleased with my first fleece.

Once it was dry, it fluffed up into a big pile of fleece. Now I just have to decide what to do with it. Right now I'm leaning toward some dyeing experiments but we'll just have to see.

That's it for today. Yesterday was a very good day turned decidedly bad so I'm still a bit cranky from it all. But it is wearing off.

by Sydney  |

Fleeced!

Yesterday was fleece washing day, a sunny warm day. This was my first fleece washing experience so take this into consideration if you're looking for advice. First I got a big plastic storage tub and filled it half full with water, outside. I had already picked through the fleece to remove any plant matter I saw and to open up some of the locks.

Then I took the fleece and pushed it down into the water and let it soak for several hours. Soaking overnight would probably have been better, but I'm impatient. As you can see in the picture below, a lot of dirt comes out just in this initial soak.

After soaking, I drained the water off and took the fleece to the washing machine. For some reason this was scary to me. I've soaked and spun wool sweaters without even flinching. I was sure that the fleece would felt. I filled the washer up with hot water from the water heater, added some Ivory dishwashing soap, and agitated just enough to mix it up. Then I turned off the machine and added the fleece. After about 20 minutes, I spun the water out. The fleece still looked dirty to me at this point so I repeated the wash cycle, taking the fleece out while I filled up the washer. Then I rinsed out the fleece with the same procedure using hot water again, removing the fleece each time I filled up the washer. I think I did about 3 rinse cycles. Spinning out a fleece is amazing. With my fleece, there was no felting whatsoever and with so much of the water removed, it dried in no time. You'll have to wait for pictures until later. Here's some lessons I've learned from my first fleece washing experience.

• Don't downplay fleece preparation before you start washing. That stalk of hay you missed will turn into lots of itty bitty pieces of vegetable matter in the wash. Ask me how I know.
• Next time I'm going to spend more time flicking the locks open before I start washing. That could probably have eliminated the second wash. After the first wash, the lock tips that hadn't been opened previously, were still noticeably dirty.
• This process takes a LOT of water and a lot of time. If either of these are in short supply, you might want to send out your fleece for processing.
• I like the washing machine procedure for spinning the water out of the fleece and you can't beat it for large amounts of fleece. For my small amount, though, I could have easily washed it in a sink and just used the machine for spinning.
• A lot of that vegetable matter you missed the first time around shakes out once the fleece is dry.

It was a good experience, but I'm also glad I don't have eight pounds of fleece to prepare. Although with the washing machine method, you can easily get into a routine. With my small amount of fleece as my first fleece preparation experience, it's no great loss if it's a complete failure and I learned a lot in the process.

by Sydney  |