8 January: A whole sheep-ful

of fleece has been combed, carded and spun into 741 gms of moorit shetland yarn:

And since this photo was taken, this morning, it's all been wound into balls, ready for heaven knows what. This was the last of the fleeces waiting to be processed, the 6th or 7th I've done this summer (short term memory loss), and probably the best processed.

Now I'm slightly bored with combing and carding, and fancy doing something else.

November 8: More yarn

The batts that were dyed recently are now yarn. They were carded together in pairs, spun and then the different coloured singles plyed together to produce interesting coloured yarn -


The resulting colours were not exactly as might have been predicted from the original batt colours; a demonstration of how much colours affect each other when put together! There's a skein of undyed yarn from the same fleeces, and yes, all of them are full of slubs and nepps, or "texture".

Anyway, that was so much fun that I've done another batch, slightly deeper colours this time -

They will sit for a while to be contemplated before a decision is made about colour combinations.

29 October: Dyed batts, and a close encounter?

First, Happy Birthday to OGS (Older GrandSon)!

Remember those carded batts piled up in my work-room? Well, some of them have been dyed -


The orange shades are particularly yummy. Each batt is quite small, about 30 gms, so I am now wondering whether to card several together to make a bigger skein of yarn; if so, which colours should I blend together; and then should I spin different coloured singles; and then how should I ply them together. So many options.

To change the subject completely, a couple of evenings ago, this vapour trail appeared over nearby houses -


Perhaps the pilot changed his mind about where he was going, or practicing the air equivalent of a handbrake turn, or perhaps the satnav was throwing a wobbler - or was it Visitors from Outer Space?

24 October: Carding - done?

So now there's no bits of fleece all over my workroom, but a huge pile of batts.

These batts are a blend of the 2 fleeces I started with, and the plan was to blend the batts together further with another pass through the carder (they've been through twice so far), then dye some or all of them. But the amount is rather more than expected.

And there's still another fleece to be dealt with ....

Perhaps the next step will be clearer after a cup of coffee.

19 October: Carding

Had to stop for a moment - slight carding mishap, don't want to get blood on the fleece. Now there's a sticking plaster on my thumb, I can take a photo of the work in progress -

Three-legged stool at the back to sit on, drum carder on low stool, tray on table with current pieces of fleece and doffing needle, remains of fleeces on floor behind stool, and on jersey-drying trays at the front, carded batts in big paper bag, small bin for rubbish. The fleece on the floor is whiter and more Shetland, the one on the drying racks is more BFL and very light fawn/silver with brown patches. The aim is to blend them. The BFL one apparently liked rolling in sand, judging from the amount of it left after washing.

Must speak to Dear Husband about lack of coffee mug.

I'd like to dye some of these batts, but can't find any information about dyeing fleece before scouring and spinning. It must be possible, as I have spun some Estonian batts of varied colours that were still greasy.

The only thing to do is try it - when the carding's all done, of course.