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!