Wool, wool, wool

After my last post, my friend, Laura, wrote and asked about the three bags of wool I had acquired. I made a contact with a local man who raises Shetland sheep to train his dogs. We talked and he gave me three bags full-one black fleece, one brown fleece and one gray. I skirted the black, which is a beautiful rich color and it is getting cleaned and carded as we speak and the other two are next in line.


Skirting fleece is quite a project. It takes me a long time and I get really particular, probably more than I need to. I am getting the fleeces cleaned and carded at Tunbridge Wool Works, a local solar and wood powered facility.

The next picture is the first fleece I skirted and had processed at the wool works. It is a Jacob fleece and I love how it the batt is still striped and shows the color variation within the fleece. I have not spun Jacob before and it feels like it will be a little coarser than I am used to...we'll see.

I am still dying and very rapidly making my way through the pounds of white roving I have. I am working on getting my etsy account to sell roving and handspun as well as needle felting supplies. This wool was dyed and spun with the final product in mind. I think there is too much blue but I need to knit it up and see how close it comes to my vision.

I don't have much knitting content to show but I was really busy before Christmas. I made felted slippers for my whole family (five pairs!) and made the boys and my husband all matching cabled hats. My daughter got a nice light pink cashmere hat. I also finished last semester finals and worked alot over my school vacation. Each member of the family (not including myself) was ill over the break and one of my kids ended up with pneumonia so I was nurse at work and nurse at home.
We went to visit my parents for the holidays and I went to Knit Happens in Alexandria, Virgina. They have local dyers and I found a new (to me) dyer. This sock is the product, so far, of a local No. Va. dyer. I hope to get the other sock finished before winter is over!