Green, Green

So what's my favorite color?

Oh, one of my new favorite fiber processing tools - a cheap (under $3) salad spinner from Wal-Mart.

Exhausted!

Meaning the dyebath. Here's the "exhaust fiber" on the drying rack:

Meaning also Diana and me. Non-stop fiber fun and knitting and spinning can really take it's toll on a girl! Plus she drove from and to Montgomery this weekend.

But here's some of what we were up to:

This is Diana's growing, slowly reproducing box of wool (or so it seemed - just open a 10-lb. box of Brown Sheep mill ends and see what happens!).

Here are a couple of our better "oops!" happenings:

I wanted red over the black/white Brown Sheep mill ends. Diana nicknamed this one "Barbie meets a dead skunk." She fixed it for me - it's red now.

And here's Diana's "snow fiber." It's thawing out; yep, we're calling it snow fiber because we discovered it this morning under the snow on the deck. It tried to escape off the deck yesterday afternoon, but apparently made it no further than the ramp before being stopped. There it lay, becoming covered by the overnight snow and in danger of vanishing until spring (or this afternoon, actually). I had the rare inclination to clear the snow off the ramp this morning, or it might have missed it's ride to Montgomery.

It was a super fun weekend, and one we'd like to repeat!

Fiber Central

Hello, Fiber Central here.


Oh, and just what I needed - another fiber hobby! Though Holly assures me it's a great stash buster. I can sort of see that possibility. This little warp took 1.5 balls of the yarn. Granted it's small yardage yarn. But using up 3-4 balls of stash isn't too shabby. I'll be very interested to see how much yarn this really uses. I have to say it's been fun, and now I have a whole new learning curve.


I give you my Ashford Knitter's Loom, first project in process.





Now, how about some yummy, clean fiber?



Here's some alpaca; lovely fawn, so soft, and pretty chaffy. The jury is out on this until I try combing in addition to carding, and spinning some of it.















And here we have some sumptuous, lock washed Coopworth staples from Cedaredge Farm in South Carolina. I want this stuff for socks. If I'm lucky this is the first stage of next year's "Sock It To Me" party.















And finally, something wonderful from our local shepherd, Martha. This is a small portion of Pretty Face's fleece. She has a fine wool and a fairly long staple. I washed the fleece in my washer, but was able to pull many distinct staples for flicking and then carding. It's spinning up very nicely, too!