BYFC - Random Tip #5

When you are first learning to spin, don't be tempted by those beautifully colored braids of combed top.  Well, you can definitely be tempted and it's perfectly fine to add them to your future stash because...beautiful.  I just don't recommend trying to learn to spin with one of those.  

I'm not saying you can't learn to spin with them, but if you are trying and you are getting frustrated and not having fun, switch to roving.

What is the difference between combed top and roving?  Combed top has been...combed...and roving has been carded, which is more like brushed.  

Top is all the same length with all the super smooth fibers lined up side by side all matchy matchy.  At home I make that with actual metal tined wool combs.  I'm not sure how the commercial mills process it...now that I think about it.

Roving is all mixed together and can be different lengths and the fibers are all swirled around in less organized fluffy...fluffy-ness. This brushing can be done by a commercial mill with huge multi-drum machines or at home with a hand cranked drum carder or even using hand cards.

The picture above is roving.  See how it's fuzzy and airy and even a little messy looking?  This is Mini Moose and not only has it been processed as roving, but his wool is what I think of as a perfect medium wool.  Medium length, medium amount of crimp, medium fiber strand thickness, medium softness...  

A perfect learn to spin wool :-).

March

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady)

March was jam packed...but pretty darn good :-).

A Deep Dive

Does anyone remember Henrietta?  She came here with Heidi back in 2006, before the blog even started.  She was a grand old sheep.  A friendly Jacob who enjoyed a good back scratch and didn't need to be bribed with cookies.  She was a farm favorite.

I'd saved a bag of her roving from 2013 and in that bag was a big ball of yarn.  I'm not sure why I stopped spinning it, but I'd saved it for years thinking I really should finish it and a couple of weeks ago, when I was looking for my next Thursday spinning project, I pulled it down out of the loft.

I reviewed the thickness and twist from back in the day and did my best to try to match it.  I was shocked at how much VM (vegetable matter) was in it, but decided maybe I didn't know any better back then?  I thought I did, but there it was.  I didn't care.  It was Henri and I could pick it out.

I weighed the spun ball (a little over 6 ounces) and weighed out the same amount of roving.  I didn't get it spot on, matching yardage between old and new, but the yarn is nice and I now have almost 700 yards of one of my favorite sheep of all time.  

Now what to do with it... :-)

Here's something fun and interesting about wool and handspun yarn.  The ball of old yarn had been sitting for years.  The twist in that yarn was "dead".  The twist in the newly spun yarn was fresh.  When you ply the two together you get ramen noodles as the dead twist is taken for a ride by the fresh twist.

Not to worry.  When you wash (or steam) the yarn to "set the twist", the hot water wakes the dead twist up so it matches the fresh twist and you end up with a balanced skein of yarn.  That's the same skein, before and after. 

As I started working on this post I looked back to see if there were any good Henrietta posts to include and found this one.  Turns out she was just a mess in general and all that VM...was just Henrietta.  Apparently I'd tossed the previous fleece because it was just. too. messy.  I remembered that about Boudreaux, but had forgotten about Henri.  

That's okay.  Now that I remember the story, those bits make me kind of happy.  It's easily identified as her and that beats a "Walmart" fleece any day :-).

* * * * *

Updated to add this cute picture of Bullseye while I was spinning this yarn last week.  I'd saved the picture...and then forgot about it.  Sigh...

Thursdays Are For Spinning

A friend picked up some leftover fleeces from the North American wool show last fall and I claimed a Romney fleece.  I think that breed is exceptionally pretty (and cute) and by looks felt like the wool would be a Sara fleece (aka Not Merino), but wanted to find out for sure.  I washed my fleece a few weeks ago and yesterday pulled out a big handful to process and spin.

There was no wind and the sun was shining so even with the snow on the ground, it was too pretty to sit inside.  I carried my wheel outside and thought this picture was kind of funny with my muddy barn boots contrasting with the pretty wheel.  I ended up using them to hold my waiting to be spun bundles :-).

Pretty (and cute :-).

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady)

As the afternoon cooled, I moved back inside for the last bundle.

I wound my bobbin off into a center pull ball and wrapped it around a plying ball.  This is my favorite way to ply samples.  Putting the two ends together around the plying ball keeps the two strands tidy and well behaved.

Ready for a soak.

And after.

I've called some of my Cotswold/Texel crosses "fake Romneys" and now I can say for sure that I was pretty correct.  Not too soft, but not too coarse.  A nice bit of halo and a good bounce.  Definitely a yarn I'll enjoy using ;-).  

Spring Has Sprung

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady)

Well, that (springtime in Kentucky) escalated quickly!  Like it always does.  

Most people look forward to spring.  I'm more a of fall person, looking forward to the quiet of winter.  I haven't finished my Iknitarod vest yet, but I'm still working on it.  I stopped to knit a small sweater for a chilly new sheep friend (not at bottle lamb...sorry) who I'll introduce maybe tomorrow.  I have garden news to share.  An exciting new fiber tool.  Plans for the summer.

Just not enough hours in the day, even though the days are getting longer.

Sigh...

 

Thursdays Are For Spinning

I did follow my plan and was able to fit in some spinning today.  Notice I did not share a Wednesdays Are For Painting post...but there's always next week.  This week has been crazy.

While it would seem delightful to spin in the barn with the sheep, Maisie is not always a delight around  tools and I have a video to prove it.  My ultimate goal was to spend time hanging out with our new cat who had just gotten home from getting his vaccinations and big boy surgery.  He'll get his own post, maybe tomorrow.  It's a cute story.

I was spinning Muffin and the fancy background is just our messy gravel barn aisle.  I need to remember this along with the nice diffused light.  Do they still do those family photos with the drop down backgrounds at department stores or am I really dating myself?

I'm still borrowing the electric drum carder from my friend, but I have one of my own on order and I'm super excited about that.  More about that to come as well. 

 

I had some freshly washed Muffin fleece and she's always a favorite of mine so I decided that would be my Thursday spin.  And then, because I can't think of Muffin without Biscuit, I "shopped" in the Wool House loft and grabbed a bit of him to blend in as well.

After one pass through - first Muffin and then Biscuit layered over the top.  I then split the batt and drafted it out and ran it through two more times to more evenly blend the two colors.

Muffin in the back and the blend in the front.  More about this to come as well.  I have plenty of blog fodder.  I just need winter to come back for a bit so I can get caught up...and go back to complaining about winter ;-).

I'm working on how I want to store the batts I make and I'd love to stay away from plastic.  I have a huge roll of kraft paper so I'm trying out some options.  I love the little vintage black and white lambs.  One should never get too old to play with toys ;-).

 

Schedules

Years ago, when I was thinking about starting my small sheep business, a good friend told me that the best part of working for yourself is that you get to pick your own hours.  You can pick whichever 18 hours of everyday you want to work.  She wasn't wrong.  I've also heard that if you love your job, you'll never work a day in your life.  That's not wrong either.

One thing I haven't enjoyed along the way is getting to the end of the day...or week...or year...and realizing that I didn't do all the things I wanted to do.  This is a recurring theme and I know it's not just for me so that's all I'm going to say about that.  There are probably thousands of books about that and I should probably just find make the time to read them.

I do think having a schedule helps me.  I enjoy Tuesday nights because I "have" to join the Wool House Crafters zoom meeting.  Some weeks I get more done than others, but I like having that set schedule...and the company is good :-).  We meet for two hours and that's a good amount of time.  It's amazing what you can get done in two hours if you just put your butt in the chair.

I'd love to dedicate every afternoon to "chair work", but I've tried that and I never manage to pull it off.  Two hours isn't much time, but it's like spinning with a drop spindle.  If you spin 5 minutes here, 10 minute there, 5 minutes another time, 20 minutes after dinner...at the end of the week you've probably spun more yarn than I have with my spinning wheel.

I use "probably" in that last sentence like I've actually done any spinning lately.  Well, I did spend a little time at the end of the Kentucky Shepherd's Market last month spinning with some friends and it was really fun.  Spinning IS really fun.

The same thing happened back at the first of the year when I was playing around with the little electric drum carder I am borrowing from a friend.  Pulling those pretty batts off was really fun.  It was nice...and a little weird...to have to be reminded why I started all this in the first place.  Wool is fun.  Take the time to enjoy it.  MAKE the time to enjoy it.

So I know I can't show up from 1:00 to 4:00 every day.  Seems silly, but we both know that if that was going to happen, it would have already happened.  I don't work for myself as well as I work for other people.  

I'm not even sure I can show up every day.  I mean I show up for work every day, but not the butt in chair work.  Obviously the animal care comes first.  And if I have to be available on the farm, it's hard not to let the art side of life fall off.  It's been a crazy start to the year.  Hopefully things are settling down...just in time for spring :-o.

Here's the plan:

Monday - Catch up day.  Set things up to make the rest of the week successful.

Tuesday - Wool House Crafters.  Already on the schedule and anything goes.  

Wednesday - Art Class.  Butt in chair and pencil, pen, brush in hand. 

Thursday - Spinning...or any fun wool work.

Friday - Make up day.  Get the things done you didn't get done on Wednesday and Thursday (being realistic here).

Weekends are wild cards.  Just try to be mindful of what you'd really like to do with your "one wild and precious life".

Okay, this post went way off the rails.  My original plan was to tell you about the new I-64 Spring Fiber Fling yarn crawl we are participating in this month, but I'll have to try for that again tomorrow.  That means I need to find a new picture to share today because anyone who's made it to the end of this epistle deserves a pretty or at least funny picture.  

Hang tight while I search the archives....because I need to add photography into the schedule above.  Okay, I've added the picture of me and Frankie having a meeting about our spring schedule the other morning.  We're probably doomed ;-).

As You Plan To Carry On

I enjoy the New Year's Day challenge of trying to fit in a tiny bit of EVERYTHING that I hope to carry on throughout the new year.  I never get it all done, but it's good to at least think about what I'm hoping to accomplish in the upcoming trip around the sun.

I haven't done any spinning or knitting yet today, but it's only 8:30.  I might even at least dust my loom!  I did process a tiny amount of wool using a fun electric drum carder I have on loan from a friend.  You'll never guess who this is...so I'll tell you.

As I was looking for something else the other day I found this in a tub of odds and ends.  It's a couple of ounces of one of Renny's last fleeces.  Look!  A chicken!  (Instant distraction :-)

I took some pictures with my big camera with the plan to do a blog post (see how I'm fitting everything in?) and also made a couple of videos so you can see how the carder works.  It hums along with just a hint of sound as the wool brushes through.  A little wool processing ASMR.

 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady)

Time to get spinning :-).  Happy New Year!

Solstice Sheep Of The Day - Mini Moose

Mini Moose is a sheep as nice as he looks.  And he's about as un-Mini as he can get, but he's also a lot of floof.  You can stick your hand down into his wool and there's not much hand left sticking out.  That floof is one of my all time favorite fleeces.

I have a wool post in the works that I just haven't had time to put together, but I'll tease you with a couple of pictures of Mini Moose's wool.  There's a whole lot more to the story though, so don't let me forget to come back to it.

I know you'll want to hear more about this.

That little hint of gray mixed in.

Mini Moose is one of the sweetest sheep we've had and I'm sure that's partly due to who his dad is, one of the Nistock rams.  He's a Rocky grandson.  He came over here from Final Frontier Farm with Cheeto and Big Moose back in 2019.  

Mini Moose got his name just after he was born.  We didn't get many gray lambs and after Big Moose arrived and he was So Big that I immediately called him Big Moose, the next gray lamb born was much smaller...hence Mini Moose.  Both boys were lambing shed favorites and I couldn't resist bringing them over here after they were weaned.  

Jacobs aren't large sheep, but standing next to Tessa really illustrates how un-Mini he ended up.  I would guess him at almost 300 pounds.  He definitely was when he was a year or two younger.  His fleece weighs in around 10 pounds each year.  I think you could pretty easily knit three sweaters from him every year and I have one in my queue.

Mini Moose's favorite treat is handfuls of the "good alfalfa" :-).

And That's A Wrap...For Now

This is the last fleece I'm washing for awhile! *

I actually thought I was finished yesterday.  I took down the pre-rinse table, swept the wash room floor, stacked up all the laundry baskets, went into the skirting area just to inventory what was left...and found one more fleece. 

I'd looked at it last week when I was gathering up Ewen McTeagle fleeces, but didn't see a card with it and thought it felt too soft to be Ewen, so I set it aside thinking it was probably Burrnie.  I still felt like it was not likely to be Ewen, but something made me pick the bag up once again and turn it over.  The tag had fallen to the bottom.

Since the tag has a question mark on it, it was obviously not his original tag from skirting.  The Ewen fleeces are old and after several years of cats and chickens climbing in them and wind blowing them around, it's not impossible to lose a tag. When I'd rebagged this fleece, I must have questioned the sheep just as I was again yesterday.

But then I saw this tiny cluster of dark hairs.  That's a great clue, but sometimes stray hairs get picked up from the shearing board.  I dug a little deeper...

...and found this.  If you click to biggify, you'll see a little gray wool with some dark hair mixed in.  It's Ewen McTeagle :-).  This wool and hair was shorn from just around his face, where the dark hair from his head turns into the white wool on his body.  If it had been Burrnie, the only other short wooled sheep here, the hair would have been red.  

As far as the extra softness, I'm guessing this was one of his earlier fleeces.  I sheared him myself in 2019 so I know I didn't save that fleece.  I sent the nicest one of his fleeces off for the Lamb Camp bottle lamb yarn.  There were five fleeces left here.  Counting back I think this might have been his 2013 shear when he was just six years old.  

So Ewen wasn't the softest sheep on the farm.  It sure didn't matter.  I loved that dear sheep just the way he was.  And while he might not make a fancy knitted garment, he's going to be great fluffed into a couple of cozy comforters that we can tuck around ourselves this winter. 

* * * * *

* Why does it sound like I'm tired of washing wool?  Because I might be a little tired of washing wool ;-).

Normally I try to sell as many raw fleeces after shearing as I can.  This brings in some quick cash to cover spring vet work and shearing bills and clears a shelf or two.  With Covid throwing a wrench into that plan, I had a huge stash of wool here.  Some sheep had three years of fleeces stockpiled.  

I knew I needed to do something and decided it would be much more fun to market fresh roving than raw wool so I started washing.  I have washed 34 fleeces this summer!  220 pounds of raw wool, averaging 6.47 pounds per sheep.  11 of the fleeces weighed at least 9.5 pounds.  

While they were all fun to handle, there were a few special treats.  I've never washed some of those sheep before...the ones who get snatched up right away at the festivals - Murphy, Spud, Levi, Rocky, Big Moose, Mini Moose...  I knew they were nice fleeces, but now I know exactly how nice they are.  

Big Moose was so beautiful I couldn't even bring myself to send him off to be processed into roving.  I'll just keep looking at and playing with those curls for a bit longer.  

Of the 34 fleeces, 28 are being processed.  The five Ewen fleeces are going into quilt batting and everyone else will be ready to spin roving.  That's a lot of roving, so if you are thinking about gearing up for some fall spinning, I hope you'll keep our flock in mind.  

I think a fall farm spinning day and sale (in person and virtual) would be fun.  Stay tuned :-).

July

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sara Dunham (

A pretty good month :-).

Show And Tell

The prompt for today's Kentucky Wool Week photo challenge is Show and Tell, so I'm going to use this as an opportunity to show something I did over the summer and tell how I did it.  If I keep this up, I might eventually get the blog caught back up :-).

Instagram followers might remember taking a video tour of some fleeces getting ready to be shipped off to Stonehedge Fiber Mill and then seeing the following picture a few weeks later.  The project in the works is a new Lamb Camp yarn that for now I'm calling The Bottle Lamb Edition.  It will be a blend of every single bottle lamb I've ever raised.

I should say the video tour showed at least a tiny bit of wool left from every lamb...except Punkin.  I really, really wanted to include Punkin, the lamb who started it all.  While I didn't have any wool left, I did have some leftover yarn from way back when I paid someone to spin for me before I learned that I liked doing such things.  I wondered if it would be possible to un-spin some of that yarn.

In 25 words or less...yarn is really nothing more than fiber held together by twist.  You spin two singles and then you spin those two singles together to get a two ply yarn.  Without getting really complicated, that's all you really need to know to follow what I decided to try.

The first step was to un-twist the two plies.  I tried to do this as a whole skein, but it got way too messy and was headed for disaster, so I started cutting off a yard or so at a time.

I then tied it to the hook on a drop spindle and started twirling it backwards to untwist the plies.

Then I pulled the two plies away from each other.

So far, so good.

Next I tied one of the singles to the drop spindle and twirled it backwards to take out the spinning twist. 

After the twist was removed, I pulled the now unspun yarn apart into 4" pieces and lashed them all onto my hand cards and then brushed the pieces to make sure everything was loose and flowing.  The yarn had been sitting for 18 years so it was a bit compressed and felted.  

This was a Huge Job.

Crossing that last and most special name off the board?  Worth every hour.