Yarn Along - Are You Ready To Make Some Yarn?

Other than taking care of the "live" fiber, there has been very little "fiber" work done here lately. Am I just not good at prioritizing my time?  Probably.  Is there really just not enough time in the day? Surely I could Find Five somewhere.  Am I just lacking some inspiration?  Uh, I'm surrounded by inspiration every day :-o.  

Well, guess what!  It's Tour de Fleece time...again...seriously...it is almost July and the Tour de France already...again?!?   Time to prioritize my time, Find Five (why do I have to keep fighting the same battle over and over?!?) and get ready to be inspired.  Hopefully this will be just the kick in the pants I've been needing.

I did actually finish skirting all the spring fleeces the other day.  Well, almost all the fleeces.  Right after I took down the skirting table, put away all the sheets and bags, cleaned up the discarded wool...I found two huge bags of wool from Baaxter's cousins at Foxglove Farm.  Sigh...

As I was skirting, I started washing fleeces headed to the mill next month.  Boudreaux was his usually messy mess, Ford is so old and frail that I wasn't sure his fleece would even be salvageable, and Graham...  I'd taken some fleece off him before I took him to the diagnostic lab.  I'd not saved any of his adult fleeces, assuming he'd live forever :-(.

My dear old guys...  Three of my fanciest and favorite-est fleeces over the years.  How did it get to be so many years.  I knew Graham would be okay.  Ohio Valley Natural Fibers always does an amazing job cleaning up Boudreaux.  Ford...I wasn't so sure.  I decided to dig out my wool combs and see what I had.  

Gray - Ford    White - Graham     Dark gray - Boudreaux

Beautiful, as I knew it would be.  I'm not sure how I'm going to spin this or what I'm going to make, but I'd like something to have and to hold from one of the funniest, most irritating, Why you little...! wanted to strangle half the time, dearest sheep ever.

Ford.  You can almost tell by looking this is a bit iffy.  Not only is the fiber maybe not as sound as it used to be, but he has some skin scurf in there that would be gross not be fun to work around. Combing is always the best bet for fleeces like this.

The combs will catch most of the VM and it did take out almost all of the little stuff.  And yes, it does look like a lot of waste...

...but what is left is classic silky soft Ford :-).

Sheepmom - don't look at this next picture!

Boudreaux came from Nistock Farms and should have stayed there and been the superstar of the wool world that he could have been if he'd lived the life of luxury, wearing a protective coat and been meticulously maintained.  That's what it would have taken. Missing something?  Boudreaux probably has it stuck in his fleece somewhere ;-).

Luckily the big machines at Ohio Valley do a great job cleaning most of his yearly collection. Combs would be my choice if I wanted to process it all at home.

Ooh!  Ahh!  Sort of...

This picture looks horrible here now that it's uploaded and that's because blogger "auto enhanced" it. There is a way to turn that off, but it's 71 degrees this morning and I have better things to do than sit in front of a computer.  Sigh...

And yes, I'm still using my trusty beer cheese container lid diz.  Boudreaux and I are classy if nothing else ;-D.

Boudreaux's "bird nest" - an actual spinning term, not just a reflection on his (lack of) cleanliness ;-).

Have you ever tried to take a picture of dark wool or yarn (or other dark items) and had this happen? The color is correct on the pictures above this one.  Would you like to know why your camera does this and what to do about it?

A tiny gift basket, ready to kick off the Tour de Fleece Saturday.  

Once again we have a Punkin's Patch/My Favorite Sheep team started on Ravelry.  This is open to anyone!  You do not have to be a good spinner.  You could even use this event to LEARN to spin. It's just for fun and to challenge ourselves to make yarn, maybe lots of yarn, maybe just a little each day, learn something new...actually get a wheel out, dust it off and see if you remember how to spin.  

Not to worry, it's just like riding a bike! ;-D

*      *       *       *       *

I have no books to share this week.  I started three different (very popular) ones and haven't loved any of them enough to keep listening.  Wait, I did listen to the latest Stephanie Plum mystery, Tricky Twenty-Two, and Bullwinkle and I powered through that.  

Any recommendations for something silly like that?

Joining in with Ginny...