Jobo Designs

While browsing on Etsy some time ago... I came across a listing for a hand spinner's fleece from Barking Rock Farm.  I have tried preparing raw fleece for spinning before, with varying degrees of success.  Some of the "experiments" were less than fantastic results, but considering the dirt/vegetable contamination of some of my free fleeces, I really wasn't sure if it was the fleeces' fault, or the wanna-be-spinners' lack of skill.

I decided that since this fleece was reasonably priced, and specifically targeting hand spinners with the guarantee that the fleece was very well picked, was super clean, had no vegetable matter, and was ready to wash and spin - oh heck!  why not.  Order that sucker up!

Well lookie at what arrived this week!  this Fleece-Cube weighs around 4 pounds... and is so clean it hardly has a sheepy smell to it!  One of the first fleeces I got, I had to pick tons of manure and small trees out of it... but this stuff is Pristine!  The wool is from a Jacob Sheep, which is actually a black and white animal, so you get both colors growing side by side.  I should be able to get some plain white and black areas, and hopefully some blended grays also where the locks are half and half. 

I think my neighbors must think I am insane (as if this is the only nutso thing I've ever done while living there lol...) because as soon as I dumped the box out on the front walkway, I couldn't help it - I unrolled the whole thing and started digging through it.  To me, this looked like a beautiful pile of wooly wonderfulness... to any other unknowing person, it might have looked like I had a ginormous pile of black and white ??? on the lawn?  What is that stuff... and why is she cooing and humming to herself?  and why does she keep on tearing little bits off and putting them in a basket? 

To give you an idea of the length and fineness of the locks... here are a black and a white one:

The locks vary from 3ish to 5ish inches... though I have not gotten out my ruler to confirm the exact measurement.

Even in the grease, the locks are so soft and clean that I can spread them out between my fingers and draft.  I would say that there is really only sheep sweat and a little lanolin on there, not really any serious "dirt" to speak of.  At this point, I knew I couldn't just pack up the rest of the fleece and wait until later to process it.  I went up to the studio, grabbed a white plastic basket, and started tearing off black locks and set out to give them a rinse...

The black section (which I was instantly drawn to) seems to be around half of the fleece... and has various shades of Brown and Black which I think will card together to make a soft heathered dark brown.   The locks are strong and cleaner than anything else I have ever seen.  After soaking the basket in some lukewarm water for about a half an hour, much of the so-called dirt had dissolved.  I did one Dawn Dishsoap bath and then rinsed a few times with hot water, and really this fleece didn't need much more washing than that. 

I laid out the locks on a mesh sweater dryer and with the great drying conditions we have had the last few days, the wool is already dry.  I carded up a small basket full and it is Heavenly.  Soft.  Lofty.  Light.  Beautiful.  As far as technique, I just flicked open the tips of each lock and then gave small batches of opened locks a light carding in one direction on my Ashford Hand Cards and dizzed the fiber off.  I wish I had combs for the job, but for now all I have is carders, or drum carding.  I think this fiber would be lovely combed into top.  Stay tuned this week for an article about dizzing off some fiber from hand cards.  It isn't perfect, but I more or less get something that resembles top, just not very long lengths at a time!

I didn't have time to wash any white, but I hope to do that asap.... more to come!

ok...  The title seems random...  But the color of this yarn reminds me of Caterpillars!  Greens, Greys, Black, and a hint of Rust here and there.  When we were little we used to see lots of fuzzy little many-legged creatures in the back yard while playing outside :)

This is only the first little skein in what will be a 4 skein series...  at approximately 160 yards of fingering weight, navajo 3-ply.  I am tempted to jump in and start knitting this guy up, but alas, I should probably keep on spinning before I do too much more scheming. 

The fiber here is some Hand Dyed Polwarth, in 4 ounce bags, from London-Wul over in Moncton.  I have 2 bags... so 8 ounces total.

I was drawn to the colors immediately but when I dug into the bag,  I found that there isn't really any kind of shade distribution in the roving.  Really, it's just random splashes of color - which I don't mind - but there are long sections that are only lime green, and others that are only black and really dark colors.  It would have been nice to have a more predictable variance maybe.  There were also a few felted bits from the dyeing process.  Overall I am pleased with the fiber, and the finished yarn is delectable... but I think I will ask to open up the bag and examine the roving next time I buy this product, just to get an idea of the dyeing pattern before I take it home.

I'll post some more pics when the rest of the pile has been converted from Fluff to yarn :)

 From this:

- London-Wul Polwarth Top

- Blues and Greys

- 4 oz

to this:

- super soft, bouncy

- 3-ply fingering weight yarn

- approximately 380 yards

I very much enjoyed spinning up this fiber... even though there were a few felted bits in places.  I chose to tear this fiber up into pieces since the colors were not distributed in any even pattern.  I used my handy-dandy postal scale to weigh the torn up chunks and try and make 3 singles of similar length.  In the end I decided to make 2 plies completely baby blue, and the third ply out of the darker shades of blue and grey.  I tried to randomly disperse the colors in the darker 3rd ply.  In the end, my weighing technique was pretty close.  There was a little bit more of the dark single than the others, which I navajo 3-plied just to use it up (around 15 yards)  You can see it in the centre of the skein, about 4 strands of yarn that appear to be all one color.

This skein is destined to become a pair of squishy wonderful socks for ME!  I am thinking maybe something with cables in it?  since the yarn is very basic in color...