Fox Tales

Um, little fox?  You better not be thinking about climbing that fence.

"I won't bother your chickens.  I promise."

I finally finished my little knitted fox.  He told me his name is Jeffry and he's from the same designer as the frog and the bat.  I had a bit more trouble with some parts of this pattern, but I managed to figure things out and I think he turned out pretty cute.  

His sweater ended up a bit too long, but it was designed to be sewn with a seam up the back and it  worked out to leave the back seam open a bit over his tail :-). 

I used Lamb Camp Bottle Lamb yarn and dyed the orange and dark gray colors.  I stuffed it with the orange combing waste from the Tour de Fleece.  I like to use similar colors for stuffing so any loose spots don't show through.

I have two other stuffed friends in my queue.  One is a knitted lamb and the other is a sewn felt sheep.  January has been a bit busier than I'd hoped it would be, but it's still nice to not have all the summer work hanging over my head so I have time to think about what would be fun to work on next :-).

How has your crafting year started?

Big Moose - The Cliff Notes

 

This was his lamb shear.  Look at those curls!  The locks were all carefully separated and then hand washed by a dear friend.  I can't believe it's taken me this long to take them for a spin, but I've gotten almost as much fun out of just admiring them as they are :-). 

If you remember from the Blaze combing post, I lash some locks to my stationary comb and use the loose comb to transfer the combed locks from one back to the other and them pull off the combed "top".  It's slow going, but you can't beat that prep.

I was undecided about how to handle the different colors of gray in his fleece.  I love all the variations, but sometimes once it's spun, the charm of it gets a bit lost and just looks messy...disorganized...I'm not sure how to describe it.  Not being a "color" person makes life complicated sometimes.

I ran the combed fiber through the drum carder - one pass.  You can still see some variations, but maybe a bit more subtle.  I really like how the yarn turned out.  I will probably do another sample where I don't blend it on the carder and maybe one more where I run it through twice to further blend it.  

Wool is so fun :-).

Tour de Fleece Detour

The early part of my Tour de Fleece is making a detour through Indiana this year.  One of my challenge projects is spinning some yarn for a friend, from one of her sheep. Blaze is a Shropshire/Border Leicester cross and this is definitely a Sara fleece.  I like wool that feels like wool.  Not scratchy by any means, but not cottony or too silky either.

The light gray color is her most recent growth (nearest her skin) and the red, sunbleached tips are what had been on her the longest.  Unfortunately this beautiful fleece has a fiber break, or a weak spot, about 2/3 of the way up the growth.  This is fairly common with ewes raising lambs.  The weak spot is in the red area.  The staple length is quite long though and I pulled out a big chunk of what I thought was the best and gave it a wash.

My plan was to comb off the ends and see if what was left was still a good spinnable length.

I lashed on small groups of locks by the strong clipped (as opposed to the tips) end.

Combed the fiber from one comb to the other.

This is what came off.

I did two passes with the combs (one to comb it off the stationary comb and one to comb it back on) and then pulled out a long thick "strand".  I do this by gently pulling from the very end, pull, pull, pull, not letting the "strand" break apart.  This is called combed top.

I wrap it around my hand and then tuck in the end and it's ready to spin.

I started with 8.8 ounces of raw wool.  After washing (which removed oil and dirt) it was 6.4 ounces.  After combing (which removed broken ends) I have 3.6 ounces left to spin.  I started spinning it last night and we are good to go :-).

The following is a short video of the yarn being spun.  I also show how I join the next "bird nest" of combed top.  

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I'll post updates on IG/FB as I go and I'll share a picture of the finished yarn here.  Don't let me forget!

 

It's That Time Of Year...Again

It's time for the Tour de Fleece!  20 is still assembling my complete line up for this year's Tour (fingers crossed he goes easy on me ;-), but I wanted to share a sneak peek at my special "big" project.  

Last year, when I was organizing the wool storage/skirting area, I found an old fleece of Elizabeth's. It was from 2013...hence the wool storage area needing to be organized :-o.  Since I already have a completed Elizabeth project, I felt like this gave me a free pass to try something "dangerous".

Several months ago, Miss B and I separated out some dark, some light and some mix of the two and then dyed it various shades of blue in hopes of ending up with a "denim" color.  We then ran it through the picker to start blending it and I planned on carding it all.  

I have no idea what made me try combing it the other day, but I'm so glad I did.  I hadn't been jazzed about the carded samples.  I loved it combed.  My only issue then was the amount.  How much would I have to comb to get enough to make a shawl (my planned project).  

Turns out you can comb an entire fleece if you just stop whining about it and do it!  Who knew... ;-)

You can click the "combing wool" label at the bottom of this post or on the right side bar for more detailed information about "combing wool".  I'm just going to share some quick pics for curiosity and posterity.

Messy to "faded denim".  I love this color...and I think we nailed it :-D.

I still have no real idea how this works*, but it does.  You start pulling the fiber through a diz (yes, this one is straight from my recycling bin ;-)...

...and keep pulling and it all comes out in one long, ready to spin, wool [thingy].  What would be a descriptive word I'm looking for here besides "top"?  Rope?  I then wound/rolled each [thingy] into a "bird nest" (man, this post gets more confusing for non-spinners all the time :-o) and tucked it into a basket.

Natural gray/brown, white, medium blues, dark blues...

...and a couple brighter blues...that I may try to tone down a bit so they are a little less "dangerous" ;-).

That's a big basket of wool!  17.2 ounces total.  I had more waste than I should have, but I learned a whole lot for next time.  The trick now is actually making myself spin it.  I'm so enamored with the basket of un-spun fiber that I'm worried I'll just keep petting it and never move on.

Another similar shot, but with Tilly helping "pose for scale" again ;-).

The colors are more accurate in the previous picture, but I like the light on the flowers and our old truck in this one.  

I finally finished this year's Ravatar/cartoon this afternoon.  Anyone already in the Ravelry group can get a sneak peek.  I'll post it here tomorrow...which most likely means Saturday morning the way things go ;-).  It's pretty cute!

* "It's still magic even if you know how it's done."  Terry Pratchett - A Hat Full of Sky

Yes, that's one of the Tiffany Aching books that I just burned through one right after the other.  Fabulous fun!  With a nod to the old Yarn Along posts...  

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...

Winter Wool Workshop - Part Two

Warning - very picture heavy. I would have broken this down into three posts, but tomorrow is Yarn Along day and I'm hoping to get my Iknitarod sweater swatch done in time to post for that. At this point I don't even have the skeins wound off, so it looks like some late "training" tonight...which is good practice for the actual race :-).

We'll start the picture marathon with Miss Mira because I fully realize that most of you are only here to see her ;-D.  Yes, she really is as cute as she looks and tiny, tiny, tiny.  She and Maisie weren't far off on birth weight, but she does seem smaller than Maisie...maybe because Maisie was born larger than life ;-).

So, we started with six freshly washed fleece samples and experimented with combing, hand carding, drum carding and flick carding.  I didn't get pictures of everything, but here are some bits and pieces.

Preparing to comb.

Getting ready to pull the "top" off the combs.

Yes, we used my fancy beer cheese plastic container diz.  I am nothing if not classy ;-).

Now this is classy.  Nistock Taffy.  Just a gorgeous fleece and a dream to work with, as was Nistock Freckles who I somehow managed to not photograph either day (?).  Both were combed and drum carded.  We didn't attempt to hand card them because the staple length was so long.  Hand cards work best between three to four inches.

The pretty gray fleece was another group favorite.  Note the difference in length from Taffy.  Wool comes in many different lengths, textures, colors, crimps (curls/waves)...  This fleece was hand carded, combed and drum carded.  

Combing catches all the too short parts of the locks and any debris that might be in the fleece.  See the short bits left on the combs?  The top (long skinny stuff coming through the diz above) that pulls off is perfect.

The two white fleeces were a good challenge for the hand cards.  I'd have thought the the finer fleeces would have preferred the finer cloth (spikes closer together) cards, but we actually seemed to have better luck with a coarser set.

But the finer cloth drum carder handled them best.  Always something to learn.

Some fluffed up  Nistock Luna headed for the coarser cloth drum carder.  This was another stunning fleece.

Using the "stabber" to pull it off the drum.

After one pass through, ready for a second pass, already dreamy.

Like a cloud.

I'd forgotten I had a teasing board.  I found it when I was pulling out tools and I'm so glad I did. The board anchors to the table and you can easily flick the tips of your locks open and also catch any second cuts you may have missed when you skirted.  See how it quickly pulled off the sun bleached tips?  I am going to use this for Baaxter's fleece this spring!

A line up of beautiful, fresh from the farm fiber.  What a treat!

Nothing goes to waste.  All the leftover bits and pieces and mistakes and combing waste...got set out on the forsythia bush for the birds, because even though it sure doesn't seem like it, it's time to start putting out your collected yarn scraps and wool bits.  The babies might really appreciate some wool lined nest this spring!