And a glamour shot, which actually shows the true colour. I have two of these skeins.
Saturday 20 December 2014
Raspberry Chocolate BFL
I bought some ready prepared, pre-dyed BlueFaced Leicester tops from Sara's Texture Crafts in shade Raspberry Choc. I split each one into long strips and spun them separately. I plied them to make a Fingering Weight yarn, 206g/900m total. In the future I may have a go at preparing BFL from raw fleece, who knows!
Tuesday 2 December 2014
Hillcrescent Farm Jacob Fleece No.6
I really want to finish working through all of the Jacob fleece that I bought from Hillcrescent Farm back in June 2013 before I start working on some Jacob fleece that I had from another farm, 19 miles away in Elford, Staffordshire, courtesy of an old friend. By old friend, I mean she's not old, we're the same age, but I've known her almost half of my life. This time I selected Fleece No.6.
This was sheared on 26th May 2013, had not been skirted and had a good amount of surface VM. It was very small and after I skirted it it weighs 790g, photos were taken after skirting had taken place. I think this is from the sheep 2nd from the left in the photo.
I separated the colours as best as I could into black/brown, and a mixture of the colours. There wasn't enough white to make it feasible to keep it separate. I washed and dried the colours separately and was left with 444g of clean fleece, a loss of 346g of dirt and grease, broken down as follows: 312g black/brown and 132g mixed colour.
The Mixed Colours Fleece
I took the 132g of mixed colour fleece and combed it, removing all the short bits and rubbish leaving me with 66g of hand combed nests. I noticed that some of them were very pale and some very dark so I took these and blended together to make a more evenly coloured yarn. I lost a further 10g in the process, leaving me with just 56g to spin, a yield of just 42.4%, which I spun into a Fingering Weight yarn of 55g/255m.
The Black Fleece
I combed the 312g of black fleece down to 137g of hand-combed top, a yield of 43.9%. I plied the singles together to make a Sport Weight 2ply yarn which is 129g/508m. There was a lot of rubbish in this fleece, see the pile of waste in the first photo! For those who can add up, I lost the missing 8g during the after spinning washing process when the last of the dirt and lanolin washed out.
So that is all of the fleece used up to make these fabulous skeins of yarn.
This was sheared on 26th May 2013, had not been skirted and had a good amount of surface VM. It was very small and after I skirted it it weighs 790g, photos were taken after skirting had taken place. I think this is from the sheep 2nd from the left in the photo.
I separated the colours as best as I could into black/brown, and a mixture of the colours. There wasn't enough white to make it feasible to keep it separate. I washed and dried the colours separately and was left with 444g of clean fleece, a loss of 346g of dirt and grease, broken down as follows: 312g black/brown and 132g mixed colour.
The Mixed Colours Fleece
I took the 132g of mixed colour fleece and combed it, removing all the short bits and rubbish leaving me with 66g of hand combed nests. I noticed that some of them were very pale and some very dark so I took these and blended together to make a more evenly coloured yarn. I lost a further 10g in the process, leaving me with just 56g to spin, a yield of just 42.4%, which I spun into a Fingering Weight yarn of 55g/255m.
The Black Fleece
I combed the 312g of black fleece down to 137g of hand-combed top, a yield of 43.9%. I plied the singles together to make a Sport Weight 2ply yarn which is 129g/508m. There was a lot of rubbish in this fleece, see the pile of waste in the first photo! For those who can add up, I lost the missing 8g during the after spinning washing process when the last of the dirt and lanolin washed out.
So that is all of the fleece used up to make these fabulous skeins of yarn.
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