Mmmm, today is wash and spin fiber... but only after I have cleaned more in the studio...

The Weekend

Oh a good weekend, a fun weekend, a productive weekend! Besides a little housecleaning, I just concentrated on carding and spinning one of the alpaca fleeces I bought at the sheepdog trials. I took the smaller, cria, fleece, 20 oz. I got it all carded on my Louet mini roving carder, and spun up about half of it. Maybe a little more. It was so warm and balmy outside that I did alot of the carding and all of the spinning outside, helped of course by my 2 funny kitties. I am spinning a pretty fine yarn that I will ply with itself to use in a shawl or maybe a hood/wimple. I am ready to start on the second bobbin, and hope to finish it over this week. It is so soft, I spun it with a medium draw, semiworsted style. Oh it is lovely I tell you, lovely!

Working Woolies!

This weekend is the Montpelier Sheepdog trials, and accompanying fiber fest.... love those puppies! I got my bordercollie fix, and will last a while now! It was mostly novices that were running while I was there, and those youngsters were entertaining. By 4:30 the sheep were pretty fed up with the whole thing, and were not easy to run. The last dog I saw run was half bordercollie, half bearded collie... imagine a bearded coat on a border body! I came home with 2 alpaca fleeces, one cria, one yearling. They are lovely, one a rose grey, the other a red and charcoal, my cats were fascinated by them. I also contracted for two icelandic sheep fleeces. They will be shorn at the end of October. They are cute puffballs, both will be hoggets (first shearing) and softer than the usual icelandic. Ah, a good weekend all together! My project for the fall is to spin all four fleeces, then in the spring or summer to build a warp weighted loom. Perhaps I can weave on it by fall. My first project will be a rectangular shawl, who knows after that.