Ta Da!

Cutting a completed project off your loom. Priceless.



Spreading it out somewhere for the first time. Priceless.



Yes, there is a slightly different color stripe in there. Another "at least you can be an example to others" moment. Always label your yarn. While I can't imagine I had any other white, soft down type wool with that much VM in it, not only does it not exactly match in color, but also didn't full quite the same. Not so priceless.



Fulling is the process that finishes your material. Turns it into actual "cloth". Just off the loom you could wiggle the threads around and poke your finger through a hole. Obviously now, after washing in hot water with my favorite Mrs. Meyer's lavender laundry soap and letting the machine agitate it for 2 minutes, checking it every 30 seconds, it's a fuzzy, cozy, very soft blanket. Yay Punkin :-D.



Now most folks would probably not set their heirloom handspun, handwoven, took 8 years to go from sheep to shawl project out in their barn to dry. But honestly, the barn is usually cleaner than the house ;-). And it's bigger.

Stella and I stretched, smoothed, pinned, cut fringe and enjoyed the occasional breeze blowing through and complained when it quit. Or maybe I was the one mostly complaining. And it might have been more like whining. I was so happy with the end result though that I didn't really mind. Much.



And we had some very good help. Still no name cat is doing great. Looks like she's around 3 or 4 years old. Just a wonderful little kitty with such a sweet personality. Wish I knew her "story".



I thought about staging a picture in front of the lit fireplace with a glass of hot Irish whiskey, but just couldn't bring myself to do it. When it's too hot for me to be a smart ***, you know it's hot.

For anyone not following our very fun (I think it's the most fun group on there ;-) Team My Favorite Sheep Tour de Fleece group, one of the members, a spinner from Ireland, posted a picture of her spinning for the day in front of a lit coal fire...complaining about how cold it was over there.

We promptly kicked her out.

It wasn't the first time.

Well, not really, but now that I think of it, she hasn't posted any pictures of sheep grazing around the countryside lately... ;-)

So, to wrap (hehe) things up, the last few days of the Tour are going to be mighty busy. I've got the last of my Turkish spindle spinning to do (we won't talk about that), the Great Wheel challenge day (22nd) spinning and a big bag of B. Willard to spin.

Zoom!

Technical notes/details:

• Finished throw weighs a little less than two pounds.
• Just off the loom measured 43" across and 6'10" long.
• After fulling, 39" wide and 6'1" long.
• We hand fulled the different stripe after we pulled it out the washer and it actually matches the rest of the blanket pretty darn closely.
• I can't remember if I had more than one year's shearing in there.
• I think I had OVNF wash it (it was that long ago).
• I may have just spun that skein tighter...but I doubt it.

While I wish I could say that I was 100% sure it is all Punkin, they're all my favorite sheep :-).