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...

Can I Have An Extra Leap Day?

So my original plan was to tell you about all the things in this picture...and then some. I'm going to step away from the coffee pot and break things down a bit. First I'll tell you about what's in the plastic bag. You'll just have to wonder about the Minwax ;-).



This might be the nicest (at least to me) fleece I've ever worked with. No, it's not one of ours. You can tell that by how clean it is. Sigh. It's a Border Leicester lamb fleece from a friend who would like it spun so her mother can knit her a vest.

Here is it before washing. Have I mentioned how much I love the way wool smells? Sitting out in the sun - even better :-).



After the first wash cycle.



Here it is completely washed and dried. Look at all the color variations.



Here's a close up from a lock I picked up off the floor, mid-wash. Is wool cool or what? And isn't it weird that wool and cool are pronounced completely different? Maybe I do need another cup of coffee. Or a nap!

Anyway, I wish we had some sort of feel-evision. Not only for this, but for the white (guess what that is) and the red and the gray (in the brown bag) from the first picture. More tomorrow.

In the meantime, how did everyone do with their Find Five challenge? I fell off the wagon during shearing and found it hard to crawl back on. I did get quite a bit accomplished fiber-wise in the last few days though and if I could just have a couple more leap days I might even get the house cleaned ;-).

I am enjoying these challenges and have the next two months already planned out - both good ones! Ready to play along? :-)

Find Five

I have a confession to make. I live on a beautiful farm with some amazing sheep. I have a awesome dedicated work space in the Wool House and a loft full of fun fiber. I have drop spindles I could carry around with me, spinning wheels in the Wool House, a really cool antique Great Wheel in the living room. I don't even want to think about how many days go by that I don't spin any yarn. Something I love.

It's nuts. And it's all my fault. I just don't. make. time. And it's not like this is world peace - though God knows we could use some of that - but it's something that nags at me. That I let make me feel stupid and unproductive and ungrateful. And I'm not really any of those things. Well, definitely not ungrateful at least.

I'm not a bad spinner, but I'm not a good spinner either. I thought the other day, you know, if you just spent a measly five minutes everyday spinning something, it would probably be amazing how much better you'd get. How the second skein of yarn would probably match the first skein so your mittens fit better without some creative blocking.

And good grief! If you didn't set up the Mitten Knittin' challenge, would you have ever finished those mittens in the first place? Why does it take the Tour de Fleece or the Knitting Olympics to kick you in the butt??? Do you need an accountability challenge all the time?!?

Yes, apparently so.



So here's the February challenge - Find Five. If there is something bugging you - like not finding time to spin, knit, weave, take a walk, read a book, call someone rather than texting them, cleaning your house (okay, maybe not that ;-)... set yourself a goal to find just five minutes every day and do that thing (or things). Five minutes doesn't sound like very much, but if you are currently doing ZERO, those minutes are going to add up. Surely everyone can find five minutes somewhere.

If you'd like to join in, leave a comment here on the blog or join the Punkin's Patch Ravelry group. If you blog about it, let us know so we can follow along. Feel free to put the Find Five button on your website or Facebook or whatever you use. That's Hickory, B. Willard, Hank, Eli and one of the Adventure Chickens - five Punkin's Patch friends who are always getting stuff done. I'm not saying they are always getting stuff done we like them to...but they stay busy ;-).

I am going to spin something...every day. I'm also going to walk up the hill to Stella's...every day. I should probably clean my house too...but that's going to require a different kick in the butt. Probably from the health department ;-).

Anyone in?