Once Upon A Time

When I was first learning to wash fleeces, I was told that rather than pulling all the wool out of the washer to refill the machine with hot water that I could just push the wool over to the far side as it was filling. Yes, that's true. I did it quite a few times. However, the One Time I got side tracked and the machine started agitating... Well, you know what happened.



"You did WHAT to my wool?!?"

It was, of course, a favorite sheep with a favorite fleece (Jester :-o) and even though it only agitated for probably less than a minute, it came out as a big rope of Jacob sheep dreadlocks.

Ruined.

Or was it?



I couldn't bring myself to throw it away. It was Jester after all. And it still was beautiful. It just needed a different job. I often wondered if I had let it agitate a little longer if it would have come out as a solid circle and look like a wool washing machine shaped wreath. I liked the idea, but stewed on it forgot about it for a few years.



I pulled it down out of the loft over the weekend and decided to try wrapping the rope of dreadlocks around a wire wreath form. Perfect!

I anchored it with some yarn - just simply tied a piece around the whole form about every 4-6 inches and snipped the tails. The wool completely hides the yarn.

I then took a felting needle and touched up any spots that looked like they needed it.



I wanted something for the bow that was either wool related or at very least natural looking, rather than plastic/nylon/polyester. This is an old felted (on purpose) sweater...that might look a bit familiar to some of you.



The Jacob sheep horse harness brass was an eBay find I think. That too was several years ago and it has been sitting around waiting for a job as well. Sometimes it pays to hang onto stuff ;-).

I'm not sure if I just got lucky with this or if it's repeatable...on purpose. The wreath is pretty neat though I think and might be a great way to utilize a fleece that wasn't an exceptional spinning fleece. If you try one yourself, let us know if it works!

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Random.org picked #1 in the Christmas card giveaway. Congratulations Susan :-). Drop me an email with your address and I'll get them sent right out...as opposed to the calendars that are still not ready to mail - a stapling issue of some sort. Hang tight!