| So, that happened. Oops. |
[May. 11th, 2009|08:21 pm] |
When I started spinning, I said, “But I never want to have to do any prep work with the fiber. I’m just going to buy already prepped fiber.”
Then I started thinking about dyeing my own, because people had given me undyed fiber.
Then I started thinking about maybe buying a fleece at the upcoming fiber festival, maybe 2, so I could have enough for a sweater that I would have made all of myself (spinning, dyeing, crocheting – everything but raising the sheep). My friend Celeste gave me one of her (many many) fleeces about a month ago, but was that enough for me? No…
I went to the Shepherd’s Harvest Sheep & Wool Festival this past weekend with the intent of buying 1-2 fleeces, wool combs (to make the fleece spinnable) and taking a dyeing class.
Two days, one set of wool combs, two pounds of hand-dyed merino, and (about) five fleeces (from seven sheep and alpaca) later, I finished.
I’ll be learning a lot about processing and prepping fleece in the next few months.
I bought 1.5 alpaca fleeces (all of Squiggy’s and I split Rocky’s with a friend, Celeste), 1.5 fine wool fleeces (all of Barbara’s and half of Iris’s), and the equivalent of 2 medium wool fleeces (one whole, whose name I didn’t get, and two halves, Flora and Pudge, which I split with another friend, Kerry). Total of 25 pounds of wool and alpaca. Some of that will wash out (dirt, lanolin, etc.), but I should still end up with more than 20 pounds.
This is the first fleece I bought.
( Clicky for more pictures. )
If you want to know the details, you can click through to Flickr and see my Shepherd’s Harvest photostream. Also my Fiber Prep photostream, for some extra fleece and related pictures.
I was pretty disappointed in the dyeing class. I love the results, but the instruction was almost non-existent. We were told to soak the merino in water. While some of us were still soaking, the instructor basically said "Ok, here are the dyes and the roasting pans. Go ahead and dye your stuff." I asked lots of questions - I'm one of those people - and didn't always get very helpful responses. "How do we know when the fiber is soaked enough?" "Oh, you know..." "No, I don't." "When it doesn't seem dry anymore." *sigh* At another point when there was a lot of stuff going on and questions about steps in the process (because we were at a transition time), she was out smoking a cigarette. Although we eventually wrangled some information from her, she didn't offer anything like, what are the steps, why do we do such and such, here are some handouts to help you. All I came away with was the dyed fiber. If it hadn't been labeled a "class," which to me implies teaching and learning, I probably wouldn't have been as disappointed.
But meeting up with spinning friends was nice. I spent time with Elizabeth, Celeste, Kerry, and Jess, and learned and shared and participated in mutual enabling. (A week ago, Kerry told us if we saw her carrying any fleece to her car, we should shoot her. Instead, she and I split two fleeces, and she got some other fleece too.)
It was a spinning-intensive week, with spinning groups on Sunday and Tuesday, then Shepherd's Harvest this weekend. And I was so tired at the end - I'd spent about 6 hours each day (Saturday and Sunday) at the fiber festival, sitting down for only about 5 minutes total. Between that and the poor sleep (nightmares Saturday, late bedtime Sunday), I'm dragging a bit today.
In other news from the past month, I’ve been spinning (I finished about 6 skeins in the last month), crocheting (working on 2 shawls and a sweater) and working. And doing other stuff. Haven't been posting here, though, and I've basically not been on Facebook for a week or more. I climbed a highly overrated 5.10c, but I'm counting it anyway.
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suprstaticwoman's journal
chipper
tired
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