Looking out the window I finally see the sun shining after days of grey and snow......yes snow......and rain. The rest of the week looks sunny and in the 60's.......could it be that spring is really here? We have burned more wood in March and April then we did in December this year.......crazy weather.

Lot's of fibery fun was happening this past week. I made progress on my daughters shrug. I am more then half way now and have the pattern memorized.  Just keeping my fingers crossed that it fits. Since she is in Canada I am using her sister as a model so all should be good..

I finished a skein of Apricot the Alpaca. It ended up 380 yards of fingering weight. I've decided to spin up the rest in natural and will be doing a 2 color shawl. The yarn is soft and squishy with a light halo......really lovely.


 I pulled out the triangle loom that I borrowed from my Guild. And got totally enthralled with the rhythm of weaving. I am using handpsun and the colors are making me think of autumn and how much I will enjoy having this shawl to throw around my shoulders this fall.


  Thanks to my new friend Nicky I also pulled out the dye pots this week and began a new adventure. I will be sharing a post about my experience later this week but here is a look at my end results. I used a natural dye extract, Logwood and a few different methods and had so much fun with it. I involved the kids in the process and am calling it science for our schooling this week!!


I am still reading Knitlandia and loving it. So fun to hear about all the fibery places she has been! Joining Ginny for the Yarn Along. Happy Knitting!!!

Most of my time this week has been focused on a test knit for designer Susan Ashcroft aka stitchnerd on Ravelry. The pattern is Little Big Wrap and is set to be released in April. Not only has it been a delightful and relaxing knit but also a stash buster as I am using early handspun from my over flowing shelf of handspun skeins.



  Early handspun really means it was early on or actually with these skeins, in the first year of my spinning "career". Not sure career is the right word......no it's not .......but at the moment I can't think of another one.  So if you look at these early skeins and the skeins I am making now there is a big difference. Earlier skeins are not very consistent and tend to be a bit lumpy in spots. I am still proud of my earlier handspun. We all must start and learn and progress. And with spinning it is all about the practice. So when I look at these skeins I see how far I have come. All that to say these "early" skeins can still look amazing in a knitted project. I am finding that the knitting or weaving can make your handspun shine. And isn't that why we spin anyway. At least for me......I spin so I can create beautiful things and this pattern is really making my heart sing. It is designed to show off a beautiful skein of yarn, hand spun or commercial. I am excited to get this finished today and blocked. We might just have a few more colder days that I can actually get to use it!


I also finished my latest spin. I ended up with almost 900 yards of this lovely and soft fingering weight. I shared the fiber and the process in last weeks Yarn Along and here are a few finished photos.







I finally cast on for my March socks! Let's see if I can finish them before the end of the month! I'm just doing the Hermiones pattern on my toe up 2 at a time.

Mr. Happy Jackals

We are busy this week in the Rabbitry! I will be doing a post on how we harvest fiber from our angoras later this week. So if you are interested come back and check it out. I also did a post on the sheep shearing we went to last week and you can find that here.

So many of you are reading Knitlandia so I had to pick it up and start. I am really enjoying it!! Joining the Yarn Along over at Small Things today. Happy knitting everyone!

I've been spinning for over 2 years now and have been wanting to process my own fleece for a while. I guess it was a natural progression and the next rabbit hole to go down in my fibery pursuits. I searched the web and read many accounts of how others wash their fleeces, I talked to my fellow guild members and they shared their opinions and I also watched some youtube videos  and all of these thing were very helpful. So I gathered some supplies and just decided to go for it.



I had purchased 1 lb of corriedale from a seller on etsy a few months ago. It was washed and the pictures showed an amazing color. When I received the fiber it was washed but still had a lot of lanolin in it and so I decided to wash it again. It was a coated fleece and had no VM (vegetable matter) at all but I did not want to spin in the grease so more washing was necessary.

locks aligned and ready to wash

With this fleece I decided I wanted to preserve the lock structure for easier combing. I began making piles of locks all aligned with the tips pointing the same way.

I then placed these locks in neat piles inside mesh laundry bags. I filled a large plastic tub with hot tap water. Our tap water gets really hot and so I did not need to boil water to get it above 120 degrees. I squirted Dawn dish soap into the water about 1/3 cup and then placed my mesh bags into the water. I left this to soak for 25 minutes (approx. as I got distracted with other projects a few times)

soaking

After 25 minutes I took the bags out and gently squeezed the soapy water out of them. I then placed them into another tub of hot water to rinse. Another 25 minutes went by and then I repeated this procedure with another rinse soak.

When they were rinsed well I laid the bags on a towel and rolled them up to gently squeeze the water out of them.

I then pulled out my locks and laid them on wire shelves to dry in the sun. It was very breezy and they dried really fast.

A couple notes......water temp is important and must be kept high to melt the lanolin. It also must be kept constant or the cooler water will make the lanolin hard again and very difficult to get out. I only needed one wash with this fleece as it was already pretty clean....other fleeces might need more. Do not agitate the fiber in the water or it can felt.

washed locks

One benefit of working with a raw fleece are super soft hands from the lanolin!

I enjoyed this process a lot. I am really happy with the resulting fiber and can  not wait to process it. I will have another post on combing and spinning it.