Moving On ....to the next Sheep

Hello Jodi......this is the only picture I have of Jodi.  She is a new mother this year of the twins shown here with her.  I'm told she's a wonderful, watchful mother. 
Many of you who follow me on facebook you've seen the pictures and have heard me rave about Joid's fleece.  I saw the fleece online at Cranberry Creek Fibers a few days before I went to the Waynesburg Sheep & Fiber Festival in mid-May.  I fell in love instantly and hoped I'd find the fleece there or would be able to order it.  Well, I did get it and was like a kid on Christmas morning.  A huge bag of beautiful long wavy fleece.  The locks were unbelievable.  I couldn't wait to get her washed and see how well the locks would hold up after being washed.

So, the fleece washed up beautifully and the locks and curls all stayed nice through  the washing process, so now onto carding some of this.  The shine on this girls fleece is so unbelievable I was hoping it would come through in the carding and spinning. I don't do a lot of spinning from the lock.  Maybe when I feel a little more confident about it.  The fleece went through my drum carder well and looked like silk after it was carded.  Gleaming!
I sat down to spin just a little of this before preparing for this blog post.  I spun about 10 yards.  To my disappointment it looked liked hardware store twine.  OMG, what should I do with this!  I was so upset .  I set it aside to give this some serious thought.  I have a "big" bag of this still uncarded and a box full carded.  It really does look like silk!  Sooooo, I decided to dye the carded fleece first and see how well it will dye.  According to The Fleece & Fiber Source Book, it should hold it's shine.  So that's what I'm going to do.  I'll dye what I have put through the carder and then blend it with another fiber!  And while I wait for a cooler day to dye, I'm going to get better acquainted with spinning from the lock.  It's about time I mastered this and Jodi's fleece is the best reason to do it now.  I'll catch you up on a later post on all of this. 

As for now, I just got done cleaning a really curly Lincoln Longwool and can't wait to show you this one.  I'm also in the middle of cleaning a gorgeous alpaca named Dakota.  You gotta love alpaca!

Daisy the Black (Finn) Sheep

This is Daisy, Woodspryte Daisy.  She is a Finn Sheep, momma of twins this year, isn't she a beauty!  The Finn, aka-Finish Landrace is an ancient Scandinavian breed. Known for silky & sleek fleece. This was my first full fleece.  She was my "trial by fire" so to speak.  My first and so far my toughest fleece to skirt and clean.  So full of hay and grass and what ever else, it took me a long time to get thru her beautiful fiber.  She was well worth it.  Looking at her picture she appears to be a chocolate brown, but she is gorgeous black under all that sun bleached tip.  I loved the color contrast so much that I tried to save as much of the light chocolate color as I possibly could.  The carder was the biggest challenge.  A lot of it just wouldn't make it thru that.  While cleaning, some of these tips were just too full of VM to keep also.  But fortunately enough of it made it thru and into the really nice yarn I'm spinning from her.  I'm really happy with the look.
Dark chocolate with milk chocolate sprinkles~~


As I always do.  I pick thru the raw fleece to get the best locks separated and I clean them separetly.  Those I needle felt into some type of fasion accessory piece.  Usually a boa or scarf.  Daisy's locks made a unique and beautiful long scarf.   I really liked the unique look of this girls locks needle felted into this scarf......(above right picture)

As for the actual fiber review of Daisy......The fibers were very well crimped and the locks very well defined.  It made separating the best locks pretty easy.  She washed easily also, not a lot of grease.  It washed well thru my normal 3 step washing process.  The carding was just a little tricky because of the sun bleached tips, but I was expecting that ahead of time.  I would get Daisy's fleece again.  She is a beautiful black and the tip color is what makes her unique.  She needle felted very well and is spinning just fine. Her black has a nice sheen, actually it was hard for me to photograph because of the shine.
I'll give Daisy a thumbs up, excluding the crazy amount of grass & hay that came along with her.

Join me next week as I move onto a beautiful ewe named Jody.....wow!

The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook - LOVE IT!

The fleece & Fiber Sourcebook by Deborah Robson & Carol Ekarius is by far my "favorite" reference book for all things fiber related.  I found this book at my local library early this year and instantly fell in love with it.  I picked it up daily to read all about the different breeds of fiber producing animals that produced wonderful fleece for spinning, felting etc. 
After reading thru a good portion of the book I decided to make it my mission to eventually
purchase and work with each and every one of the fibers written about in this book.  They write on
more than 200 fibers!  So comes my blog adventure.  I want to share with all of you my journey.
I hope to capture the best and worst of my adventures in words and pictures.  Hopefully anyone
following will find this both helpful and entertaining.