Jacob Fleece

So, a couple of weeks ago, I bid on and won a black and white Jacob fleece. It's obviously only part of the fleece as it only weighed about 2 pounds.

That's two pounds including all the Vegetable Matter (VM) in it. I'm not sure I really want to know what, exactly, VM comprises. Or is comprised of. I do know that there is lots of grass and hay and some burrs, and I'm thinking even some shit!

For those of you who don't get "raw wool" that you then process yourself. Yeah, it's kinda gross!

I am working on my second chunk, as it were, of this fleece. I am starting off with a cold soak. I'm sure you can figure it out, but I'll detail it for you.

1. Put plug in sink and start filling with cold water.
2. Grab a hunk of fleece out of the plastic bag in the freezing garage.
3. Put wool into sink and push down into water so that it all gets wet.
4. Let soak for a while.
5. Gross out at the wierd color the water has become.
6. Squish the wool to the side of the sink and see the color become a deeper yuck. Pull the plug.
7. Rinse the sink, replug, refill with cold water, let go of wool.
8. Let soak.
9. Repeat until water is clear.
10. Pull wool out of water and squeeze as dry as possible. DO NOT WRING!
11. Let the wool sit on the divider bar of the sink while you fill with hot water.
12. Add dishsoap until the water is the color of the soap... Blue for Dawn, green if I'm using my Method Cucumber.
13. Carefully put the wool back into the sink. Let soak.
14. Repeat until water is clear.
15. Rinse until water is clear.
16. Pull wool out of sink. Squeeze water out.

Now, you can either put it in a mesh bag and put in the spin cycle of washer, or wrap it in a towel. Then, roll the towel up, put it on the floor and step on it. Grab another towel and repeat this process. Now, you can either put it outside in the sunshine to dry, or put it somewhere in the house to dry. Some people recommend piling on the floor vents, some recommend sweater racks and others use the towel bar in the bathroom.

Last week, I put it outside in the gorgeously sunny and 'balmy' 45 degree heatwave we were having! (We got 7 inches of snow the next day!) Today, however, I think that it will have to go on some towels in my craft room!

Harmony...

Okay, so this is Harmony, the newest "memeber" of our family! She is a Double Treadle Ashford Joy spinning wheel.There on the right is the very first thing I've spun on it. I will put up photos of my first yarn when I get the pictures taken. I have plans to dye the first and second skeins of yarn. Duane said he'd help me... could be fun!

My plying has gotten a little better, but I am still having some tension problems. I have 8 more ounces of wool to practice on... And, there are many, many more for be to buy and spin up!
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Originally uploaded by ginaswigert

Things I'm Loving

First and foremost, is my wonderful husband Duane (Bunny)

I have been checking out some really cool blogs... Here are some of my favorites:

www.yarnharlot.ca Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is absolutely hysterical! I laugh and empathize and wonder if she's writing about me.

www.phatfiber.blogspot.com This gal has the best sample boxes of fibers and yarns and tools and fun stuff! And she has the in with some really great fiber artists. Such as

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6136823 YarnCandy by Melissa. She has really great stitch markers and Shawl/scarf pins. Even though frogs really aren't my thing, she has a really cute frog shawl pin.

I am also following the escapades of Susie of Martha's Vinyard Fiber Farm at www.fiberfarmcsa.com/blog. Soon their lamb cam will be back up and running. There are few things cuter than a new lamb.

Okay, so you can tell I'm new at this blogging thing... I don't know how to make the links just say the name of what it's linking to.

My new Joy spinning wheel

The Black Dagger Brotherhood series by J. M. Ward. Those are some seriously hot vampires!

The Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. I'm so glad that I didn't have vampires to worry about when I was in high school!

My laptop. This way, I can still be on the computer and Duane can sleep. Until the mouse falls out of the bed!

Oooh, I just thought of something else I am totally into and loving: Ravelry. For a yarny, crafty type person, it's abbo fabbo.

Okay, that's it for now.... Tune in next time when we'll hear all about the Campbells and the Tates, on Soap!

She's Here!!

After waiting patiently, or as patiently as I can, my new friend Joy is here!

I had to wait most of the afternoon. The Brown Man (UPS guy) usually hits my street at about 2 p.m. Every other day but today. Today, he shows up at 3:30. I had a couple of places to go, but I wanted to wait til he dropped Joy off... because I knew as soon as I left, he'd show up. So I waited. And waited, and waited some more.

Finally, he brings her and I set her in the house and then run to Wal-Mart to get some cold medicine... Duane has been fighting a sinus thing for a few days and is miserable. So I quickly went and grabbed some nyquil and dayquil.

I got home and Duane had arrived just before me. I handed him his drugs, and put chicken on to boil. After I opened the adult proof dayquil, I opened Joy's box and started to unpack her and the other goodies that came with her. Let me just say... the box she came in was really small! She and her carrying case, an extra bobbin and a niddy noddy only weighed 17 pounds!

I carried Joy into the diningroom and sat in front of the arcadia door to use the natural light to put her flyer together. Then came the brake band and putting her bobbin and flyer on. Let me just say, she treadles like a dream! So, I played around just getting the feel for her treadles before I went and got any wool.

Duane was taking a quiz, so I figured I could play for a while. I figured out how to attach the leader and then got some of the wool that also came with her. (It arrived last Saturday, so I've had a couple of days to pet it.) I got it all started and spun up about an ounce and a half. Then I got up to make supper. I could barely walk! My right knee, the good one, hurt so bad I could barely stand on it. By the time I finished making the chicken salad, I could walk with no pain.

As we were making our sandwiches for supper, I told Duane that I would have to find another chair to use, as our diningroom chairs are too tall. I ended up getting the footstool I used to have to use to get into bed. (we had a really tall bed). I put a pillow on it and "went to town." It works pretty well, but I will have to figure out just how I'm sitting that is tweaking my knee, because I must be sitting crooked.

I wanted to see how she folds up and fits in her carrying case. So, I took off the flyer and bobbin, set the wheel to the position that allows for them to set into the frame, swung the extra bobbins on the integrated lazy kate into the frame opening, undid one of the treadles and then folded them up. Man, it was slick. I picked her up, did I mention she only weighs about 11 pounds? No? Well, she does... she ain't heavy... she's my brother. She fits into the padded case very well. There is a little handle at the top and a long shoulder strap. The bag looks like it should have two straps to wear it like a backpack. Hmm, maybe an email to Ashford is in order. Not that it would do me good now... maybe in the future if something happens to this case.

I will post pictures of her tomorrow! But, wow. She's so cool. I know I will dream of her tonight.

Spinning, the Superbowl and Sleep

I have been handspinning some dog wool that I've collected from Chance. It's not the prettiest, but by gosh, it's fun! I don't know how much I have on the spindle, but I've kinda gotten the hang of it. Of course, since the staple length of this fiber is less than or close to 2", I've been doing the "park and draft" thing. I get some extra thickness and fuzziness when I have to join in a new rolag of fiber, and I haven't quite figured out yet how to stop that. I think it will be interesting to see this when it gets plied.

My Joy should be here in 2 days... Come on Brown Man, hurry up and get here! I ordered it from Copper Moose. Fortunately for me, there was a glitch in the way their buttons work for this particular spinning wheel. I wanted the wheel with the carrying/storage bag. It should have been $695. I clicked on the button and it put just the wheel in the cart. For $575 (the wheel alone should have been $615), then, when you add the bag ($115) the total comes to $690!!! So, I saved $5! Whoo hoo, go me! It comes with some freebies... an extra bobbin, a niddy noddy and 1 pound of corriedale roving. The roving came yesterday (Saturday). It is sooo soft! I wanted to pet it for a while, but I had some arranging of the craft room to do. Duane helped me with that. He is so good at figuring out where to put things. Now, we I have to start going through the basement and finish bringing stuff to the craft room.

Okay, so the Superbowl was tonight. We flipped back and forth between it and a two-night movie that was on last week that we taped. It was "The Last Templar" with Scott Foley (Bob "Cool Breeze" Brown on The Unit) and the British chick that was in one of the "The Librarian" movies. It was pretty good. Kinda upset that the Cards didn't win, but they put up one hell of a fight!

You know, sometimes sleep is over-rated... no wait, I mean under-rated! Lately, I have been needing about 10 hours of sleep a night. Crazy, I know, but there you go! If I go to bed when Duane does, I end up reading until quite late. Then, I'm awakened when he gets up, and then again right before he leaves for work... usually, though, I am able to go back to sleep and stay that way until 9:30 or 10. Last night, I was up farting around on the computer until 2 a.m. Then, because he thinks he's quiet and really isn't, I was up before 8:30 this morning. I had visions of taking a nap, but that didn't happen. So, now here we are... it's just after midnight and I'm still up. However, my eyes are getting tired, so I think I'm going to sign off and say, "Good night!"