Tag Archives: dyeing wool

Unexplainable

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People sometimes ask me what made me first think about learning to spin. I used to ask myself that and then gave up trying to figure it out long ago.  It didn’t come from any  life experiences. I didn’t even know any spinners. Maybe some deep genetic influence rising from the past? I try to tell people the truth- that it came from within me-almost welled up- and some are satisfied, others still don’t understand and I don’t worry about that. I am too busy doing what I am happily driven to do!

What I do know is that I

1) can’t imagine my life without the inner fulfillment that it gives me and the friends I have made because they share the love of it

2)  understand the infatuation people have with their interests even when I have no personal interest whatsoever in what they enjoy. I know how it feels to them and I respect that.

3)  feel a bit sorry for people who don’t have a grand passion whatever that might be. In addition to creating wonderful communities for ourselves these passions are always there just waiting for us to make time to indulge in them. They are also very therapeutic. But maybe even though I don’t understand it, many people are happy without a grand passion. That’s fine.

But then how did I learn? Spinners have never been found in the yellow pages and the internet was not a source of information then. I will write more about that next time because I’m dying to get back to fiber itself which this month is Gulf Coast Native sheep wool!

My previous post had pictures of them and information about them and their fiber. I currently have Gulf Coast fiber from three sheep. For fun and to distinguish our vast amounts of fiber we often name the fiber for the sheep it came from. The creamy fiber below is Sophie. She has moved but then lived on Cape Cod. Here I am with her son Boone a few years ago.

Me with Boone

I have 8 oz. of her springy fiber left which I combed and then carded into batts which are seen below. I  used the rest of her fiber for outer socks for her shepherd and wove some of it into coasters after dyeing it green. Her strong textured yarn was used for both part of the warp and the weft. It is a coarse yarn, lovely in its own way, not to be spurned because it can’t be worn next to the skin. Another form of respect I guess because I aim to use all my fiber in ways that fit its basic nature and not try to make it into something it isn’t.

Sophie with coaster

Next I have fiber from two Gulf Coast sheep from the same farm. They live on Iris Creek Farm in Scotland CT and their shepherd, Keri, also raises the rare Leicester Longwools. Her fleeces are huge and gorgeous and always sell right away at the CT Sheep Festival- https://www.ctsheep.org/sheep_and_wool_festival    which is always the last Saturday in April. Keri has a Facebook page called Iris Creek Farm which has pictures of her sheep and darling lambs.

This white fiber is her Henna before I dyed her. It was the last ounce of her and had some vegetation in it. Most of her fleece was free of it but there is always a bit since after all they are animals who are outside most of the time. Again, I was not going to spurn her because of some vegetation so I decided to dye it and I will comb it to get out the vegetation and then card it into a batt maybe with some other color and some sparkle. I won’t know what I want to combine her with until I sit down to do it. I’ll post about it when it is done. Here she is now:

GC Henna before dyedDyed Henna GC Blue Purple

A funny story about Henna: I was so taken with her fleece that I got a few years ago that I e-mailed Keri before the next CT Sheep Festival to see if I could have her latest fleece. She told me that Henna had so well  evaded people trying to catch her for shearing that she didn’t get shorn. Perhaps some of her primitive feral ancestry was coming out (see my last post for details). As aggravating as it must have been for those trying to catch her, you have to admire her. At least I do! She hasn’t had such luck since then.

Next time I will write about Fernando. He also lives on Iris Creek Farm. Lest you think spinning is all sweetness and light be prepared later on to see some pretty scary fiber processing tools that could double as medieval torture instruments. Definitely could figure in murder mysteries.

I would love to hear anyone else’s experiences with Gulf Coast Native sheep. Also how others explain their love of spinning to people who can’t believe anyone wants to do this. Maybe like me, just a shrug of the shoulders which are covered in a handspun sweater named Inez?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Snow on Snow

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Snow on snow describes our New England landscape right now. Christina Rossetti wrote a poem, In the Bleak Midwinter, in the mid 1800s which became a Christmas hymn. It has a haunting melody and often goes through my head these days.

But I don’t find winter to be bleak. It has such peacefulness to it and makes our homes cozy. My home was built in the 1830s and we also have a barn built then. Both built before she wrote her poem. They are sturdy and with proper care have withstood many winters. I look around my backyard and think about all the people who have lived here and seen these sights.barn with snowside of house in snow

The colors in our scenery are mostly white snow, green pine trees, gray tree trunks and blue sky. There is a lot of glitter too as the sun makes the snow sparkle. Having a dye day recently with friends helps to bring more colors into our lives. We gathered in a cozy kitchen, played around with color, ate black bean soup and chocolate, and as it does with women, our conversation at lunch skipped between laughter, teasing, reminiscing, sharing some sad/bittersweet personal situations, and talk of when we could get together again for more fiber activities,  and more laughter.samples of dyesDyed Fibers Feb 2015Kid Mohair (2)

And now, what to do with these beautiful fibers? No spinning plans right away. I will just enjoy looking at them and touching them. That kind of attitude, common among spinners, has resulted in my recent fiber organizing that revealed that I had 500 ounces of washed fiber ready to process and spin. Wow. That’s a lot. I have used up some of them since then but not much. I’d like to think that I will use this blog as a vehicle that will give me accountability to use more up and not buy anymore in 2015. Yep, we’ll see how that goes.

But I will give it the old college try and my next entry will include information about Bluefaced Leicester Sheep , the individual BFL sheep whose locks I have, and how I will use the 12 ounces I have. Each month I hope to do the same with other breeds. But for now I am off to pull out that fiber to enjoy its tiny curls and to think about how cute they are. That alone makes me happy and for a short while I will forget if we have snow on snow or spring flowers.