Jananas

On one of our winter cottage trips, Nancy (the lovely owner of Log Cabin Yarns) gave me a bag of raw, unprocessed fleece from a sheep named Lucy. I skirted the fleece to get rid of the really icky parts, washed and rinsed and washed and rinsed and washed some more to get it clean(er), and then laid it out to dry. I then packed it away in 2 ziploc bags to store it because it needed to be carded.

Yesterday I tackled the first bag of Lucy’s now clean fleece. I ended up with 9 batts of fiber! Here’s a photo to give some perspective on the size of the ziploc bag versus the amount of space the batts take up. The floor looks dirty because most of the last of the vegetable matter came out when I was carding it (eep).

I don’t have a project in mind yet for this fiber. I have to finish carding the second bag and then spin it all up. However, it will be enough to make a bigger project.

Its been pretty exciting to take a raw fleece and turn it into something spinnable. It’ll be even more exciting to see it turn into yarn and then into a knitted object.

How much wood could a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck would spin yarn? Answer 13 skeins in about 2.5 weeks. 4 of the skeins are less 4 oz and all the rest are 4 oz – or the equivalent of just over 2.25lbs of fiber. When I put it that way, that’s a lot of yarn!!

Sometimes I forget about how much I accomplish in my personal life. The hours that I spend at work drag on and the lethargy spills over. Then I take a look at my stash of hand spun and realize that I actually get a lot done in my limited free time (like finishing up the book a week challenge in half the time I’d allotted for it).

I rented a drum carder from Lettuce Knit for the week and have been carding a bunch of my fiber stash. Previously it was not nice to spin and I’m in the process of making it into nice, easy to spin batts. It looks like a whole lot of fiber once it is nicely aerated. I also received a 2lb box of fiber as my CSA share from Wool n Feather Farm. Oh my goodness, so much more fiber to play with! I’m putting myself on a buying hiatus until I can get more spun up.

Let me know if you are interested in any of the skeins pictured above. We can work something out and I’ll donate all profit to my birthday fundraiser for Soi Dog Foundation.

We’re having a baby shower for a coworker tomorrow. I wanted to make her something rather than just dropping money into the pot. This is the Just a Little Undershirt pattern from the Fall 2009 Interweave Knits.

Its knit in organic cotton and is super soft to the touch. I can’t wait to gift this along.

I’ve started selling some of my hand spun yarn at Wise Daughters in the Junction. One of the difficult things about hand spun is that when you often start with 4 ounces of dyed fiber, which only gives you a skein of yarn. If people want to do bigger projects with multiple skeins they’re often SOL.

One of the things I’m starting to branch out into is dying my own rovings. It means that I can dye 8+ ounces at a time. Even though it won’t spin up with the exact same colour repeats, it will at least still be within the same range. I picked up some roasting pans, just to use for dying. I started playing around with some while we were up at the cottage last time.

There’s something beautiful about seeing rovings drying over the line out in nature.

We also had a meeting last night about ways to help promote my hand spun yarn. I’m scheming away and will be working in the background to get some information, swatches, patterns, and resources put together.

Do you have any suggestions?

Today I stopped by the talk to Mary at Wise Daughters, an awesome little DIY, indie craft, and art space in the Junction. She’s know selling cassette tape belt buckles (including such classics as Milli Vanilli and Anthrax). She’s also carrying my hand spun yarn, just in time for worldwide knit in public day. In fact if you’re down in the Junction next weekend to knit in public check out her shop because there might be a yarn giveaway. Just saying.

So you should go check out her space and support both of us in our indie arts dream by picking up some handmade.