I just finished up the post from yesterday when I realized today is the two week mark until the end of the year. This is a good check-in day. Plus, I have some progress to show from yesterday.
I got the Harlequin/mohair plied. I do have some of the chunkier slubby stuff left on the bobbin. I’m not totally sure what to do with the left over. I should just spin a little more of the thin singles, but with all that VM business, I’m hesitant. I need to feel like things are moving along a little more quickly this second week of my End of Year Cram wrap-up. On the other hand, I don’t want to many random things unfinished just taking up bobbins. I already have a few of those awaiting my return.
The pink rolags are all carded up! Two stacks ready to spin.
Should I count these last two mini spins? They are both sample spins for larger projects, but also for drum carder testing. Jacob was last week, Harlequin day before yesterday.
The Jacob was to test an old drum carder borrowed from a guild member – for fun and curiosity. This Jacob is on my End of Year Cram list. (It is one of the wools in the middle pictures in the previous post.) So, yeah, it should count.
One ounce of Harlequin flicked and run through a new-to-me drum carder I just got from Ravelry Spinners Marketplace. It’s a Howard Brush fine fiber carder at 190 tpi. This was not on my radar, in fact the wool (even though I do have several of these fleeces) isn’t even in my fiber collection. I borrowed it from another guild member so we could compare each others washed and worked Harlequin fleece. This one doesn’t count.
More to come.
A quick check-in along with some fiber pics. A week and three days ago, I posted about an end of year wrap up on fiber projects. How great it would be to get a few things finished before January. January is usually my wrap up month, but this year, given the virus, I thought why not get some things done in December.
I have so many projects started. Not being that organized at the moment, I didn’t come up with a specific written list for the last three weeks of this month. Using fiber that’s been sitting around the longest makes sense for piecing together a mental list. Looking around my studio …
A list in pictures! I like it. Above pictures are a good portion of my currently in progress fiber To-Do’s. Basically in the order I should work on them. That Coopworth fleece has been sitting around the longest (since last year) – because I’m saving it to make a throw blanket for myself. That ALWAYS gets pushed to the bottom of the list of things to do. The Teeswater sitting on top of the Coopworth is roughly half a pound of the one pound washed of the 7 pounds raw that I got early summer this year. Teeswater – I love it, I hate it, I love it, I hate it…
Middle picture is where I actually started last week. I count seven different wools plus those pink rolags sitting on the floor in the back. I started with the round bin hanging on the right toward the back. That’s a Harlequin/mohair mix from sheep and goats in Smithville, Texas, milled into roving at Independence Fiber Mill. That is actually one of my most recent fiber purchases, but I was super eager to dive-in.
Last picture is pillowcase & bag of Southdown (washed last month), 1 bag of gray Harlequin/mohair roving, and last bag unknown (I need to take a peek inside). All piled neatly near my spinning wheel within the last month or so.
10 days and only 5 ounces later… I finally got all the Harlequin/mohair on the bobbins. I guess I should keep in mind for future planning that this is 5 ounces of 1 pound I bought. I am starting with 5 ounces to get a feel for this fiber. I wasn’t entirely sure how I wanted to spin the bulk of it. Or if I wanted to do several different types of yarn. Get a feel for it, I did. I spent at least 3 or 4 times the spin time picking out VM. VM, VM, VM! Must stay calm and work diligently in the midst of Vegetable Matter roving. Oh the challenge, the fine motor skills struggle of little bitty piece picking, the strain to see them all. The worst part is thinking you’re going to whip up a quick yarn, then coming to a sudden holt, for the most part, before it’s even begun. VM, the yarn blocker! *argh* *sigh* It happens… more often than you would think. I have come to think of it as part of the “charm” of working with wool. If there were no challenges, it would be dull. Some wools are just worth all the trouble. This one is going to be great, it’s Harlequin and mohair.
Feel free to share your projects in the comments. I love to hear about what everyone is working on – struggles, successes, mishaps.
Starting with a raw fleece means I get to touch every inch of that wool to make a yarn. It is a satisfying (and once in a while arduous) process. It must satisfy some sort of innate primal, primordial basic human function/need to create to survive. Ok, ok, that’s getting a little too deep… I love to process wool from raw fleece to make yarn. That’s what I do. Doesn’t matter why. I do it. It’s a good thing.
It’s a process that should start with a mental grip on the fact that it will take time. It takes the time it takes. It will be an antsy cumbersome drudge if you expect it to go quickly. Sometime it provides a quiet break from everyday interactions. Sometimes it’s a great time to listen to those 30+ hour audio books that you first purchased as real books years ago but never got to actually reading.
I split the tasks up into days and weeks. After it’s all washed and dry, I can do “drive-by” flicking and combing/carding if needed. Organized piles are always there ready for the next step. In fact, begging to be handled and transformed into it’s new existence.
The Key: must keep washed wool within site. It’s like the ring from Lord of the Rings except no bad guys, no evil, no elves, no hobbits, no ring…ok, it’s not like that at all. But the wool has some kind of spellbinding power and the magic will always draw you near.