Spinning time was short today.

Today's spinning was very short, I only carded up 7 fleece locks and spun them up. The reason for this was due to having to go to Worcester with my hubby for his Hand Doctors appointment. I didn't get involved with washing any new fleece either.

Washed up more fleece today

I washed up more fleece today and carded up more wool, then spun some of it up. I filled up the first bobbin for the second time and then started filling up the second bobbin. I still have a lot of fleece left in the bag to wash, card and spin, but that's okay. I'm enjoying the process of washing, carding and spinning up raw fleece. I'm trying to decide on which scarf pattern I would like to knit with this first skein. I have 3 patterns to choose from, but I will make a decision.

My First Skein finished from Somemore's Fleece

Yesterday I finished plying up my first skein from Somemore's fleece and I wound it off my bobbin into a skein and washed it. Today I took a picture of my fleece after I rewound the yarn to figure up the yardage, ounces/grams and wpi.

Yardage =372.5
ounces = 2 3/4
grams = 78
wpi = 17

I carded up some more fleece today from the fleece I washed yesterday and then started spinning again. I also washed up more fleece today and its drying right now.

The bobbin on the left is the bobbin finished filling up today with the fleece that I washed yesterday and carded the morning. I weighted that bobbin to see if it weight as much as the first bobbin but it was 1/8 oz shy of weight the same as the first bobbin. Then I weighted both bobbins together to see what they both weighted and they weighted 9 1/8 oz. Now my bobbins weight 2 oz empty so I subtracted 4 oz from the 9 1/8 oz and I figure that the yarn I have spun weights 5 1/8 oz.

When I finished spinning up all the carded fleece from yesterday, I went down and washed up more fleece. I wanted to make sure I had fleece to card and spin tomorrow after I came home from church and buying groceries.

Once I had washed enough fleece for tomorrow, I then went back upstairs and plied the two yarns together. I filled my bobbin as full as I could get it, then I wound it off onto my niddy noddy and washed the yarn. Its hanging to dry right now.

First Bobbin filled

Yesterday I was really close to filling up my first bobbin, but had to stop and wait until more

wool was dry. This morning I took the wool, I had washed yesterday and carded it up into a batt that weighted 1 5/8 oz. Wednesday's batt was 3/4 oz and yesterday's batt weighted 1 3/8 oz. So the total oz I've washed and carded since Wednesday totals 2 3/4 oz so far.

Before I started spinning though on Wednesday I weight my first bobbin when it was empty and it weighted 2 oz. Today after I finished filling up the first bobbin I weighted it again just to see how much it weighted when full and it weighted 4 5/8 oz. So if I deduct 2 oz from this for the empty bobbin I have 2 5/8 oz spun up of singles.

I still had more wool to spin up, after I finished filling up the first bobbin, so I put on another empty bobbin and started spinning again. When I finally finished spinning all the wool I carded this morning I had filled my second bobbin about 1/2 of the way full.

I washed some more wool this afternoon, so tomorrow I'll be carding and spinning again. I might even finish filling up the second bobbin tomorrow and start plying my yarn.

Today's Spinning almost fills first bobbin

Today I carded and spun up the 18 locks of Somemore's fleece, that I washed yesterday. My first bobbin is very close to being full. Before I started spinning I weighted the batt I had carded from these 18 locks and the batt weighted 1 3/8 ounces and yesterdays batt weighted 3/4 ounces. So I've spun up 2 1/8 ounces so far of Somemore's Fleece. My bobbin when empty weights 2 ounces, so I'm figuring that my bobbin weights 4 1/8 ounces right now.

I washed 18 more locks of Somemore's fleece again today. This way I can card and spin more wool. I haven't even made a dent in the bag of fleece yet, but that's okay. This way I'll have wool to spin for quite a while to come. LOL

This morning I brought out Somemore' bag of fleece and washed up 18 locks of fleece. They are now in the drying stage. Then I took the 16 locks that I washed yesterday and wanted to see what they weighted before carding. They weighted 5/8 ounces before carding, but after I carded all 16 locks, the batt weighted 3/4 ounces.

This is what the locks looked like after I carded them into a batt. Then I just couldn't resist sitting at my spinning wheel and spinning up this batt.

This is what the first batt looks like all spun up. You can see just how thin my yarn was spun, by looking at the penny.

I just couldn't wait until tomorrow

Yesterday I mentioned that I wasn't going to start washing my fleece until Wednesday. Well, I just couldn't wait until tomorrow to start washing some of my fleece.

So around 3 pm today I started setting up my supplies to start washing my fleece. I read on a forum on Ravelry about using "Goop and Sauve Clarifying Shampoo" to wash fleece and thought I'd give it a try. The Lady on Ravelry that uses this technique is "Ohmygracious".

"Ohmygracious" mentions taking some fleece locks and applying some goop to some locks and rolling them into sausages. She says that she lets them sit for 5 minutes before rinsing in warm water. So I did this with 8 locks in my first batch and then rinsed them in warm water. The she mentions about adding some Sauve Clarifying shampoo to some warm water to give the locks a soaking bath for 5 minutes. I then took my rinsed sausages and place them into warm water Clarifying Shampoo bath for 5 minutes. Then she says to rinse the locks several times and then roll the lock in a towel. I did this as well.

After I rinsed my locks several times I then placed my locks onto a towel as well and rolled them up to get as much of the water out as possible. Then I laid them out on my rack to dry and started washing a second batch.

This was fun! I think I'll wash some more tomorrow and if my first batch of washed locks are dry I'll start carding them.

1/2 Somemore's Bond Fleece

Earlier this month I contacted Joanna of Gleason's Fine Woolies via email about ordering a fleece to try out. I have never worked with raw fleece before, but have always wanted to give it a try,
just to scared to jump in with both feet. Well, I finally took the plunge, after I talked to Joanna and read about how to clean fleece on the gfw ravelry forum. Several people on this forum were very helpful about how to clean fleece and also gave me incouragement to jump right in and give this a try.

On May 10th Joanna sent me an email with some information on 2 different fleeces along with pictures of both. It was very hard for me to make a decision, but with my husband's help, I choose one. The one ended up choosing was "Somemore's" 1/2 fleece. On May 12th I sent off my payment via paypal.

Today around 2 pm my postman walked up to my house and placed a box in front of my garage. My shih tzu's started barking to let me know that they heard a noise outside and I looked up to see my postman getting back into his mail truck. I opened the door and walked outside and he motioned to the box in front of the garage. I nodded and headed right for it, knowing what was waiting for me in side. I was very excited (just like a little kid getting exactly what he/she wanted for christmas), and ran up the stairs and into the house and then down to the basement where my husband was to open the box in front of him.

I was smiling from ear to ear and my husband was laughing at me, because I was so excited. I was so excited that I was opening the box very very very carefully. Once I had the box open I undid the bag that held "Somemore's" 1/2 Bond Fleece to let it breath like Joanna told me to do. I know some people will think I'm a little nuts and some won't, but I was smelling and touching this fleece as much as I could. My shih tzu's love this fleece too and were going crazy sniffing it. My husband was even touching and playing with the fleece.

Joanna also place in the box a bag with a sample of already washed and processed fleece for me to play with as well as a picture of some of her sheep. I just love this picture and will be hanging it up on the wall of my spinning/weaving room, so I have something to look at when I'm spinning. I'm already loving this fleece so much just from what I've seen and felt, that I just know I'll be ordering more fleece in the future.

I was going to start washing the fleece tomorrow, but I have to go with my husband to the hospital tomorrow while he has a CT/Dye Scan done. So I will wait to start washing some of this fleece until Wednesday. I will try very hard to take pictures of the washing process, carding and spinning of this fleece here on my blog.