Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival 2017

Currently in sensory overload. We saw so many bright colors at the festival, so many textures, touched so many soft things. Basically, by the end we were starting to get indifferent to beauty. That's when we left.

This is pretty much my mind right now

I went to the annual Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival with my mother-in-law, who knits and crochets a bit, but doesn't spin. This will be my fourth time going - I missed last year because I was graduating. This year we got to the festival at around 10:30 (two hours after opening) and it was drizzling and cold. The rain eventually let up, but it was still pretty cold when we left at 4.

The first place we went was the fleece sale.

Fleece Sale

Grouped into categories, they had bags of fleeces on tables, with a tag giving the type and other details, and stickers indicating whether they were Maryland local sheep and whether they were from 4-H. The fleeces that won ribbons had been auctioned off the day before - we were picking through the ones that weren't submitted for judging and the ones that didn't win. Still, there were a lot of people looking through them, and it was first-come first served.

This was my first time buying a fleece. I have processed bits of fleeces before, and I got one for free through Craigslist, but this was different. I knew that I wanted a longwool, or at least a fleece with longish locks, since I have been doing a lot of carding recently, and my combs are getting dusty. I don't really like processing fine wools like merino, because I am afraid that they will felt. I also was leaning toward a conservation breed. I like the idea of helping keep a rare breed alive by buying their products.

After I had looked at and touched a bunch of fleeces, with my handy Field Guide to Fleece providing insights, it was down to two fleeces (or none. I still hadn't committed to getting any at all). I asked a volunteer to unroll a perendale fleece for me. He took it to a table and helped me test some locks for soundness. It was remarkably free of grass and other VM, and the locks were sound and quite long. The only problem was that it was pretty greasy, and yellowish.

Perendale fleece from Lucky Lane Farm, rolled out

Well, long story short, I bought it. I'm hoping the yellow is just the lanolin mixed with dirt, but we will have to wait until it is washed. Early experiments look promising. I have separated out the finer back wool to process separately, but scouring will have to wait a few weeks.

Unwashed perendale lock.

Picking out the fleece took us over an hour. We spent most of the rest of the time looking at yarn and roving among the many many many vendors at the festival. As usual, I bought too much, although I don't think there were any really bad purchases. 

Cheviot sunset gradient roving - so pretty, I couldn't resist.

I have been noticing two trends, however. A much larger percentage of the yarn for sale has silk blended into it. I like the feel of it, but it is too expensive for the kind of knitting I do. It does make it a lot easier to avoid buying too much yarn. The other trend I've noticed it that there is more roving and raw wool for sale in the booths. Now, maybe I am just noticing it more, but maybe handspinning is catching on?

We also spent a bit of time looking at the skein and garment competitions. They were... incredible. 

There are so many pictures I could show. But I'll let this one speak for the rest.

Although we were there for most of the day, there were parts we didn't go to this year: the craft demonstrations, the sheep-shearing, the sheep demonstrations, and the fiber animal barns. I did get one really cute animal picture though, from one of the booths:

Yes, it's a rabbit and not a pile of fluff. If you are having trouble seeing the rabbit, the pink is the inside of the ear.

Whelp, I'm tuckered out after a long day. Good night to you all!

good night

Sheep to Shawl: Part III

Part I covered washing the fleece, Part II covered prepping it.

Today I am going to talk about spinning it.

While I am nowhere near done spinning the thousands of yards that I will need for this shawl, I am nearly finished with my first bobbin-full.

The current state of my bobbin. Notice the very fine white thread coming off the side: that is the single for the yarn.

I am spinning the finest singles I have ever spun on my Ashford Traditional wheel. This is one of the most popular wheels out there. Probably because it is simple to use and looks great.

My Ashford Traditional

A lot of the new style wheels are, in my humble opinion, really ugly. If they aren't ugly, they are above my price range. While I have no problem with functional wheels, I need to be able to not care that the thing is sitting in my living room all the time, and not need to hide it when guests are visiting.

This particular wheel was bought off of Craigslist, and the woman who sold it to me also threw in the fleece that I am working on (as well as a bunch of other fiber). It was a fairly large investment for my budget, but I have been spinning on it nearly every day, so I consider it money well spent.

One nice thing about having a fleece (or possibly three years of fleece: there is an awful lot of wool in those bags) is that you don't need to worry particularly about running out. So I did a half bobbin sample that allowed me to decide what I was looking for and to hone my skills at working with the flicked locks to make fine singles. I plyed my singles in two different ways.

Standard two-ply:

Two-ply practice skein

Close-up, as best as I could manage, with coin for size comparison

And chain ply:

Chain ply closeup, as best as I could manage.

The two ply yarn was had singles that were more variable than I would like, and I may or may not use them in the final shawl. The chain ply, because it was my first time doing it, was full of unevenness, and possibly unusable for large sections. I gave it to a dyer friend for experimenting with.

Books I have read recommend using two ply for lace, since it leaves the holes more open, so that is what I will be doing for the final project. But it was good to get a chance to practice chain plying: I have gradient top, and the technique will preserve the color progression.

Gradient top, and a nice change from all this white.

That is all for now. It may be a while before I talk about this project again: I have a long way to go before I get to the next step!

Part IV can be found here.

Conservation Breeds

One of the things that drew me to spinning was the connection to our common past. Knitting feels "modern" to me, since yarn is available in lots of places. Spinning though, especially on the drop spindle, feels more ancient, more basic.

Because of this, I have been attracted to breed-specific wool for my spinning. It feels more authentic if I know that it is border leicester wool that I am spinning, and not generic "wool". Plus, breed specific yarns are hard to come by, and it is one of the advantages of hand spinning that I can pick for breed characteristics.

I am particularly attracted to the conservation breeds. Mechanization made sheep with non-white wool obsolete. It made sheep with variable wool obsolete. It made dual-coated sheep obsolete. Mechanization required standardized sheep.

But as a handspinner, I love wool that is different colors. Dual-coated sheep are interesting. There is pleasure in exploring the unique characteristics of a breed and making yarn that works.

A few years ago, I bought my first unwashed wool (by accident). I saw that the festival had wool from a "navajo churro" sheep, and it was an interesting color and texture. At the time, I didn't know anything about the wool, but was interested in exploring. I bought some "jacob" roving at the same time.

Dark jacob wool roving

Lighter jacob wool roving

1 lb unwashed navajo churro wool

After this, I went out and bought several excellent books on different types of wool, to figure out what the heck I was doing.

I discovered several interesting things about navajo churro wool.

1. It is generally considered ideal for weaving.
2. It is dual coated, so it is a pain to deal with.
3. The breed almost disappeared, but some enterprising people revived the breed starting in the 1980s.
4. The wool I had gotten had very short locks, so was not going to be very drapey.
5. It is generally considered an extremely odd wool to work with. I could tell that my locks had almost no crimp (waviness) and kind of looked like human hair.

The triangle shape indicates a dual coat

I decided to spend the time to separate out the locks into the outer and inner coat, although apparently most people don't bother when working with this type of wool. I took off the outer coat by holding the wool at the base in one hand and pulling off the tips with the other. The bleached tips helped. I then combed the wool. It still looked remarkably like human hair.

A bit of combed wool

It felt kind of rough. I had been planning to make socks out of it, since the outer coat is thicker and more durable. I was starting to get worried that it would be too rough for socks. Still, I spun it up on my drop spindle.

One single on the spindle

By the time I was plying it, I knew that it was very rough. I still hoped that a hot bath would loosen it up and make it softer.

After finishing

Nope! Still super rough. I decided to stop fighting against the inevitable and just make a non-clothing item.

Trivets

The trivets I ended up making were perfect for the wool. The original pattern was closed in the middle, but I made an extra wedge, because I liked how it looked this way. I am hoping to get three of them out of the yarn, but I might run out.

So, in conclusion, the lesson for the day is...
Conservation breeds are great, but pay attention to what they are saying they are for, and don't try to make next-to-the-skin garments from anything that wasn't bred for it.

Later: what do I do with the under coat?

Sheep to Shawl: Part II

So, I have pounds and pounds of (mostly washed) leicester wool (see Part I). What can I do with it all if I am uninterested in dyeing?

One lace shawl, coming up.

Moreover, I have been wanting to knit a tallit for awhile, but it is a big project that requires some motivation. The poetic interest of making a religious object "from scratch" has some appeal, and they are usually mostly white - so no dyeing required.

So, how do I get from pounds of wool to a shawl?

Washed wool ready to be processed

First off, even with the remaining gunk, the locks on this wool are a gorgeous white and long.

Six-inch leicester locks.

The longer the staple of the lock (length) the easier it is to make low-twist, drapey yarns that are perfect for shawls. Six inches is great.

The locks are too long for carding, so at first, I tried combing. But the remaining lanolin made it too "sticky" with the combs I had. It ended up snapping most of the wool, leaving only a quarter as usable.

My fiber combs

Next, I tried just using my flick carder.

My flick carder, or flicker

I kind of hate this tool, because of the way it tends to scratch up my hands when I use it. I wish that it had a blunt end, rather than than having the carding cloth go around the corner. But it opens up the locks beautifully.

Flicked locks

Just flicking the locks lets me spin with aligned fibers (which makes good knitting stitch definition) without mucking about with the combs. It also gives the little sticks and bits of grass a chance to fall out (the dreaded VM). Even though I put a cloth on my lap, it does mean that I look like I have been rolling around in mulch whenever I flick locks.

The one last question was what to do with the waste wool that gets pulled out by the flicker. I fold the lock over my finger when I flick to try to prevent loss, but there are always a few shorter hairs, and some tangles.

I have been making "dryer balls". These go in the dryer, and they supposedly save energy and make clothes naturally softer. Since they are felted, it doesn't really matter what the wool looks like, so I have been stuffing them with the waste. I haven't used them yet though, because I am waiting until I have enough to felt them in the washer.

Pre-felted dryer ball

It is about the size of a large orange. The yarn is an unsuccessful handspun made with some other waste wool.

Part III can be found here.

Sheep to Shawl: Part I

When I bought my Ashford wheel a few months ago, the seller asked if I would be interested in a leicester fleece. Apparently, she used to have a sheep, and had never gotten around to processing all of the wool. She sent along a picture of the sheep, who's name was Laverne.

Laverne the sheep

Of course, I jumped at the chance. Even though all the guides said to be wary of free fleeces (you usually get what you pay for) I knew that she was a hand spinner, so hopefully it wasn't too bad. At the time though, I didn't know about the volume that would soon be filling my small apartment.

It turned out that Laverne had produced three laundry bags full of wool, although, as you can see, she was a white sheep, not a black one. The first bag was washed, but had yellowed terribly, probably from sitting in some attic. The other two bags were unwashed, but had been sitting around long enough that the lanolin had hardened. Thus began my saga of trying (and mostly failing) to wash this wool.

Step one: a 24-hour soak in cold water to get out the dirt (and dung).

Wool soaking in the bathtub

Step 2: go out and buy soap to remove the lanolin. I bought Woolite gentle, although afterwards, I saw warnings that it wouldn't work. But they were for the regular Woolite, so I figured I would give it a try.

Step 3: wash with very hot water, the hottest that comes from the tap, and let sit in a bucket for 15 minutes first with soap, then two hot water soaks without.

Step 4: discover that the wool is still greasy. Decide that the problem is the soap, and buy several bottles of Dawn dish soap, as recommended by other fiber processors.

Step 5: repeat step 3.

Step 6: discover that the wool is still greasy. Decide that the problem is the heat of the water, and carefully add boiling hot water from the microwave to every part of step 3.

Step 7: discover that the wool is still greasy. Decide that the problem is the hardness of the water. Repeat step 3 with ammonia in the first soak, and vinegar in the second.

Step 8: discover that the wool is still a bit greasy. Give up and decide to spin "in the grease" and wash the yarn afterward.

Next up in part II: prepping the fiber to spin!