Rain Rain Go Away

Come again some other day.  Like Monday.

I've done about everything I can...except load the truck and trailer.   So, here's a snuggly lamb enjoying a rainy afternoon last week :-).

You Might Want To Put Your Coffee Down

We are setting up back with the fiber folks at the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival this year.  While I had a beautiful spot at the Bluegrass Classic Stockdog Trial last year (and they even threw in an adorable little chipmunk) I still couldn't see the trial field.  Ah, the good ole days...  Sigh.

They were looking for more sheep for display in the livestock vendor area, so I agreed to pull out a couple of the usual crew and added a couple new ones for color and breed education.  I wanted to hang something on the side of the pen to identify the suspects....hey, suspects.  Yeah, that's perfect! I'll set them up like mug shots :-D.

I tried using actual photographs, but it just wasn't "working".  I hated to give up on what I thought was a perfect idea though so this morning I sketched out some simple line drawings, colored them on the computer, dropped them onto the mug shot background...and I just can't stop laughing.

Your line up for the festival this weekend!

And...I'm sorry.  I think this is a scream.

I hope that brightened your day as much as it did mine.  Or maybe I'm just nuts...  SHUT UP! ;-)

Come see us this weekend!

Weave Something In November...Or May

Remember the 2011 Tour de Fleece? When I spun some Karakul yarn for a friend and was going to make something special for her as this was one of her favorite sheep?  I'd quickly decided on a weaving project...and this past fall, when I still didn't have it finished started I thought maybe a challenge would help and set up the WeSoInNo.  Yeah.  I just finished it.  May-vember?

The project I designed was based on a traditional overshot weaving pattern that I thought looked like long wavy locks.  With an overshot pattern, you use two different yarns - in this case the handspun Karakul with a commercial black yarn background.  A shot of gray, a shot of black, a shot of gray, a shot of black... 

It's exciting to see the pattern start to develop.

I wove the desired length and then picked through a bag of loose locks I'd set aside and pulled out some possible choices.  Karakul has such a pretty color and texture (not soft by any means, but still beautiful) and I wanted the piece to reflect that and the sheep herself.

I wove in three rows of locks, separated by a few rows of plain black to hold it together.

The top is plain weave (over one, under one, over one, under one...) folded over and stitched, with a simple dowel rod hanger.

I love the layers of wood and wool in this picture. 

"Grandma"

The Danger Lamb

Okay, so I was properly shamed for not posting a picture of Maisie for Mother's Day ;-). I tried to get a picture with my iPhone yesterday evening when we were hanging out at the bridge, but while she was being super cute, leaning on my legs (sheep hug), wanting me to rub her tummy and her face and tell her what a good lambie she was (which I did, of course :-), the pictures were, um, weird.  

Luckily I remembered some funny pictures I taken a few weeks ago.  I'm torn between taking Mother's Day points away because I was letting her play in a basket of wool with very pointy objects or giving extra points for holding the wool combs away from her while she was playing and keeping the camera rolling ;-). 

We call her the Danger Lamb because from between her birth 'event' to a couple 'fling myself off the couch into the coffee table and knock myself silly' events to 'hey watch me jump off the Wool House porch' and her friend Hickory (!) trying to 'play' with her...she's given her momma more than a few gray hairs!

Happy Sheep Momma Day

It was blowing and pouring rain when I got to Kathy's, but the big stall was sheltered and cozy.  I picked up the smaller of these two lambs, the one on the left, and sat down.  She'd never been held before but quickly settled in.  Some lambs do and some lambs don't.  As the rain pounded on the tin roof, she fell sound asleep, getting heavier and heavier.  When she woke up I put her down and my arm was covered in drool.

Happy Mother's Day :-).

Lamb Camp Continues!

I spent yesterday afternoon at Kathy's helping her skirt some pretty fleeces for the fiber festival next weekend.  Usually lambing would be over by now, but there are a few late babies this year.  I took lots of snorgling breaks  :-).  Here is Ruth Ann's new baby.

"Why yes, I did just get borned today!"

"It was crazy!"

"And now I guess my mom is trying to bury me in hay."

"Sorry, baby."

"S'okay."

I probably won't get back over there as I'm trying to get my own stuff ready for next weekend, but I've got several more cute pictures to share to wind down Lamb Camp for this spring.  It's been a good one :-).

Washing Wool

When we left off the other day, Blossom was skirted and waiting to hit the wash.

For this I move around to the Wool House porch, dump the fleece out...

...divide it into two portions if it's a big fleece...

...and give it a good shake to remove as much VM (vegetable matter) and any remaining second cuts...

In case you are interested in the actual washing steps, I'm going to send you back to a previous post that covers it pretty well.  There is also a label on the right side of the blog that will take to you any posts that refer to washing...if I've remembered to add the label "washing wool".  We'll wait ;-).

Once Blossom was washed, she returned to the porch where I fluffed out her clean, bright white wool on the drying rack.  Actually, I think this is just half if I remember correctly.  Depending on the humidity and breeze, it takes between 8 and 24 hours to fully dry.

I've posted plenty of pictures and videos from previous trips to the mill, so I'll skip that and move on to spinning some yarn.  In a couple of weeks.  Sigh.

Skirt(ing) Work

I first learned the term "skirt work" from one of my favorite blogs, Just Another Day on the Prairie.  I'd not previously been aware of this...probably because cooking, cleaning, ironing, grocery shopping...ain't my strong suit.  So much.  Linda's got that and all the "jeans wearing" ranch work under control out there with beautiful photography as well.  Around these parts I use skirt work to refer to skirting raw fleeces after shearing ;-). 

While ideally it's best to skirt straight off the shearing platform, at the time, we just quickly pick up each fleece and wrap it in a breathable cotton sheet, tag it, set it to the side and bring out the next sheep to be shorn.  Skirting comes later when I have time to relax and enjoy it.  Guess who's next up :-).

Over the years I've set up my skirting table in several locations.  In front of the Wool House is too uneven.  Behind the Wool House can be a wind tunnel.  In the barn aisle, too dark.  Why I never thought to set it up behind the barn, I have no idea. 

Earlier this spring when I was trying to get Maisie acclimated to living outside, I set up the table in the little lamb pen so we could hang out together and she could have fun exploring around, eat green grass Without Eating My Flowers that were starting to come up, plus, she's great company.  As were all the rest of the sheep, who were fascinated by what I was doing.  I love my sheeps :-).  This is a perfect spot.

Our table is simply a cattle panel with wire mesh stretched over, cable/wire tied together and then the pokey edges are covered in pipe insulation.  It sits on two saw horses and there are two boards underneath that stabilize and support the length. This is a good size, not impossible for me to move by myself, stores up against a wall, out of the way.  There are many different and maybe better designs out there...

So after I dump the fleece from the sheet onto the table I try to unroll/untangle it from how it was picked up.  Again, ideally there is a right and wrong way to gather a fleece.  However, some of ours are so big (Renny, Lila, Petunia...) that it's all we can do just to try to pick it up at all.  The good folks can pick up a fleece, walk over to the skirting table and fling it, like magic, into the air and it will come down properly laid out.  I've seen this on video.  Yes.

This is one of those huge fleeces.  I was able to pretty quickly get it laid out with the head facing us and the tail facing Maisie.  The "fuzzy" fleeces hold together pretty well.  The "curly" longwool fleeces don't and that's why I use the smaller wire mesh, so the individual curls don't fall through.  This was the day that I took the pictures of Maisie and Betsy along the fence :-).

First off I go around the outside and pull off anything that is too dirty.  This corner, tossed.  I also pull off much of the britch wool, which is the coarser, longer wool found on the lower back legs/hip area.  Some sheep have more britch wool than others and if it's significantly different from the rest of the fleece, I'd toss it. 

Here we have dirty tips, straw and see the grayish clumps on the right of this picture?  Second cuts.  If you biggify I think it will show that not only are these short, but also hairy, probably from around the face or maybe the legs.  That will be prickly if it gets mixed into the wool, so toss it.

These short pieces are probably not second cuts, but from shorter wool up around the face.  Still, I'd toss them as they're significantly different than the rest of the fleece, the longer lock.

Hopefully if you biggify this photo, you'll see why I included it.  I should have circled the area packed full of hay.  This is usually just around the top of the neck (unless you are Boudreaux ;-).  Sometimes I try to pick it out, but on this large fleece I just grabbed that small area and, yep, tossed it.

Now this would be a clue to me as to who this sheep was just in case her tag got misplaced.  Burs.  From a particularly adventurous sheep ;-).  I used to think burs meant a fleece was ruined.  I've since learned that while they are painful to pick out at this point, once the fleece has started the wash process they slide right out.  I wouldn't sell a fleece like this, but if you ever run across burs, just wait to remove them until the wool is wet.

Now, once most of the bad stuff has been removed I fold one side over the middle.

Oops, more second cuts.  With larger holes in your skirting table, these second cuts tend to go ahead and fall through.  With my small holes, they don't as much and I just grab them as I see them.  You can also shake the fleece to encourage them to fall out, but I don't do much of that until I get ready to wash as I like being able to roll the fleece up for storage and every time I shake one, it's never quite the same.

So, fold one side over, then the other over the top.

Start rolling from the tail to the head.

And stuff it in a bag.

Yep, that's Blossom!  Her fleece has since been washed and already back from the mill - beautiful bright white sproingy roving.  I'm going to keep at least half of it since it's her "baby locks", but might sell the other half at the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival next week.  I'm pretty happy with my fleeces and roving this year and hoping anyone who's coming out will be as well :-).

Ack!!!  One thing I just realized I didn't include here is testing for fleece soundness.  This is important for a handspinning fleece.  You'll want to make sure the structure of the fleece itself is strong with no weak spots due to stress from illness, lambing...  The other spot to check is the tips.  Especially on lamb fleeces, the tips can be fragile and that could cause trouble during carding.  This is probably a whole 'nuther post and I've got to get back to "blue jean" work...so "to be continued".

Anatomy Of A Nap

Another one of those super cute lambies from Flat Creek Wool and Pottery.