Staying on top of the stash

Remember when I mentioned Priscilla-the fleece-less-sheep-who-lords-over-the-guest-bedroom-looking-for-her-fleece? Well, she can have it. I want to give it back. She can have it. She can have them all. Every fleece I have. What started with one fleece has turned into, umm, 8, no, err, ten or is it 12? And we aren't even counting the rovings, the batts, the bags of smaller batches, and yarn...well let's not even think about that. Well, it is too many fleeces and life is too short. Besides, too many fleeces can be way too daunting. How can one choose which one to spin when you have too many? Then there are the standards each fleece needs to meet: cleanliness; purity, colour; handle; crimp; etc. . The bar rises higher with each fleece added to the hoard. Each new fleece gives you more reasons not to use the older ones. But the new one is too precious to use. It should only be used for the special project that just calls for the perfect matching fleece. So each fleece gets added to the guest bedroom. It goes in but never comes out. 

[Photo: a pearl perfect Bluefaced
Leicester fleece - setting the bar]

I know all this but I think I have a plan to keep the fleeces going in but also coming out. I will, from now on, only buy the very best fleeces. This will mean each fleece is excellent, I will just have to match a fleece with a project. So, with that in mind, I just bought the most beautiful Bluefaced Leicester fleece from Lorrie on Saltspring Island. Bluefaced Leicester is silky, lustrous, springy and pearly. Yes, the plied yarn will resemble a string of pearls. You can see the pearls in the picture. This is a fleece that Priscilla-the fleece-less-sheep-who-lords-over-the-guest-bedroom-looking-for-her-fleece can't have.

The Secret of Cowichan Wool - the sheep

Washing fleece in Iceland

Thirty odd years ago when I took a spinning course from Judith McKenzie McCuin I remember her telling us about the Cowichan sweater yarn and what had made it so special - a yarn that was light, bulky, yet very warm. So the traditional Cowichan sweater did not weigh very much. She mentioned that the fleece was from sheep resulting from a variety of mixed breeds that provided wool that was high in lanolin (good for repelling water), and had a good crimp which was needed for the fibres to press against each other creating lots of air pockets which provides the insulation. Ever since I have wondered what breed of sheep created those characteristics (see an earlier blog in which I was still wondering). What did the early settlers and the Coast Salish women use for those amazing, warm, lightweight, sweaters?
Today I was reading an older issue of Spin-Off and came across an article written by Judith in which she provides the answer (MacKenzie McCuin, J. (2008). On Washing Fleece. Spin-Off Magazine, 32(3), 64-68.)! A cross breed of Churro sheep which had been left on islands in the Georgia Strait (now known as the Salish Sea) to provide meat for ship wreaked sailors or future sailors in search of nourishment, and down breeds such as Dorset and Hampshire brought over later by settlers. So, after 30-odd years I stumbled across the answer.
I now have an even higher respect for Churro sheep (see and earlier post about Navajo churro). The Gulf Islands can dry out in the summer and there isn't much in the way of green grass, hence the Churro would have done just fine, as they did in the American mid-west where the Navajo raised them.
Judith's article goes on to explain how the fleeces were cleaned: they were either spread over fences or hedges, allowing the rain to clean them or placed in a fast-running creek. The water cleans out the dirt and suint (a type of sheep sweat but it is a natural detergent) but leaves in the lanolin which provides the rain-proofing for the yarn which is ideal for this wet climate.
I wonder if there are any cross-breed sheep of this type left?
Edited to suggest a great book on the history of Cowichan Wool and sweaters:

Working with Wool, a Coast Salish Legacy . Although it looks at the history of the Cowichan Sweaters, it covers the history of the wool too.

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Up to my #@$% in Fleece

Last night I found myself bidding on fleece at a silent auction at Olds Alberta.  Blue Faced Leicester, Leicester X Corriedale, Mohair, Llama, Alpaca, and a few more. These fleeces had been judged on Sunday and I was lucky enough to be right there to watch them as they pulled, poked, smelled, twanged, measured the fibres and gave  each fleece a grade.  And I listened to everything they said.  Well, almost.  But in any event, they were kind enough to let me peer over their shoulders and listen to their fibre wisdom.  I watched the wool and the mohair judging and peeked once in a while with the cashmere judging but I couldn't fit in the Llama and Alpaca.


And then I placed my silent auction bids, writing down on a card in front of the bagged fleece, the amount I bid.  On some fleece I was the first bidder, on others I was the second bidder. Future bidders would write their bid below mine. I imagined racing around the hall many times, upping my bid while other bidders did the same.  The auction was open for a day and a half but i would be in class for most of that time.  With so much fleece at stake, it made more sense for me to start placing my bids.  It would be too risky to be coy and wait until the last minute.


I did my first charge around the hall.  One bid for the incredible Leiscter x Corriedale, another bid for the Blue Faced Leiscter, and another for a fine Romney, but, I was careful and stuck to what I had learned.  Yup, quality, show winning fleece!  But what about the other types of stash, the luxury fibres.  Well, I should place a bid on a mohair, maybe two bids to hedge my luck and what about Llama.  What beautiful greys and blacks, better place a bid or two or three, hoping for at least one.  And before I knew it I had bids all over the place until I suddenly stopped and thought "What if no one else bids higher than my bid?  What if everyone else is in class with no time to bid?  What if I had to pay for all my bids? What have I already bid on?"  And then I realized I had been bidding hither and thither and had no idea just how many bids I had placed.  So much for only bidding on those fleeces that had won ribbons.


I walked the aisles again this time looking for my name on the cards and writing down in my notebook what I had bid on so when i did my next mad dash around the hall I could just hit those fleeces I had already bid on and ignore the rest.  I went down the first aisle and realized I hadn't put a bid on the gray BFL x Merino.  I better do it while I was there.  And the Frieson x Suffolk, why it is only at $20, it's worth more than that, why that is less than $2.5/lb, I better put a bid on that.  And so it went.  I was dizzy with bids.  I kept bidding rather than writing down what I had already bid on.  I gave up.  


I am worried, all those bags in the picture will not fit into the car.


... It is a day later.  I find myself the owner of three, 3! three, black lama fleeces.  And 7lbs! of Frieson x Suffolk.  In a sad way, I am relieved that I was not successful on my bids for the Blue Faced Leicester, the Romney, the Icelandic, the Kid Mohair, the Adult mohair, the... well you get the picture.  The trunk is full now anyway.


Priscilla-the fleeceless-sheep-who-rules-my-stash will be happy with this haul.  M-the hubby will not be.

Navajo Churra - Is it only good for rugs?

"What the heck is this dirty fleece doing in this garbage bag? Either throw it out or get on with it, for gads sake." This was followed by more muttering, sounds of stomping (of the four-hoof variety) and bags being thrown around the room. So ended my all of two minutes, peaceful chance of revival. Six days and nights of non-stop activity and Priscilla, Queen of the Fleece, had chosen this one and only moment of R & R to bellow out those words from the guest bedroom.  
Upon peeking into the bedroom, I saw that she was referring to the Navajo Churro i had picked up at my first Fibre Fair, where, I perhaps overly excited to see fleeces for sale in large green garbage bags. Whole fleeces. There was Romney, Shetland, and Navajo Churra which I had never seen before. I stuck my hand in the exotic Navajo Churro, piched, pulled and squeezed. It was soft and clean. I bought it without hestitating and then proudly dragged the bag around the room with me as I hunted for other fibre treasures. A sheep farmer spotted by Navajo and tossed her hair while declaring "That's only good for rugs." I sheepishly tried to hide it as she informed me of all the other fleeces that were good for a whole variety of other things. The implication being that Navajjo Churra was good for nothing...but rugs. And I had thought it soft. So much for my skills at checking out a fleece. 

And so it stayed in the guest bedroom in a, err, natural state. Now Priscilla, Queen of the Fleece, was demanding that I wash it. So I did. It still feels soft to me.  

Navajo Churro was brought over to the Americas by the Spanish and the Navajo quickly adopted it. They are hardy and produce a double coat; a long hairy outer coat and a soft downy inner coat. It washed easily in small batches as there is very little lanolin in the wool. I decided to experiment and pulled the long coarse hairs away from the soft downy wool. You can pull them apart or use a coarse comb I used a horse comb (see an earlier blog), separated them and ran them through the drum carder. The white is the long coarser hairs and the grey the soft downy wool. It still feel soft to me, but now I can get three different types of wool from the one fleece, a soft wool, a tough wiry coarse wool (good for warps and rugs) and a mixture which would be good for outer wear.
The fleece probably would have rotted away if Priscilla hadn't made me wash it. I should thank her. But I won't.

Now what?

Finally. I managed to finish the last of the Gotand fleece. It was beautiful to spin, soft, light, silky and smooth. I tried to sort it by shade and came up with three pronounced shades: light oatmeal, light gray and dark gray. Here's the stats:

• Weight: 774grams (@ 1lb. 10 oz.)
• Yardage: 967.5 meters...I think
• Single ply whorl ratio: 8:1
• Ply ratio: 6:1
• Twist angle: 200
• Wraps per inch (WPI) single: 12
• Wraps per inch (WPI) plied: 6
• Spinning method: Drum carded, stripped and worsted forward draft

All his looks confident when seen in print, but know this: I am not confident in my own stats. It is all a little by guess and by golly, but a starting point if I want to try and do some more.

And the BIG question now facing me is 'Now what?'. What to do with it?

A Stormy Good Friday

We had one of the strongest wind storms this year. The waves in front were 3+ foot. Doesn't sound like much unless you are on them. And very few people were. Two sailboats close by needed rescuing. A crew of six were tossed into the seas but rescue was close by. The Protection Island foot passenger ferry cancelled it's run. The BC Ferries sent one or two ferries across but windows were broken, bow doors damaged and the rest of the runs were cancelled. Float planes were also cancelled and we were cut off from the world....or maybe It's more correct to say the world was cut off from us, since we had a boat and someone willing to pilot it across the harbour to pick up my parents who couldn't get here. My mother arrived looking like a drowned rat. Despite a canvas cover, the waves came over the bow, flew up the window and up and under the canvas top and landed on her. Her purse also gained a puddle of salt water.

But I stayed home and got a stack of fleece processed. I am trying to get enough supply on hand to keep me going at a spinning retreat on Quadra Island at the end of the month. Here's Gotland fleece in various stages.

The spinning sisterhood

Last weekend I joined the sisterhood of spinners. I had no idea that these fiber sisterhoods existed--weekends where women get together and spin, or knit or weave. The one I went to was for spinning. Think of a large meeting room filled with 40 middle age and older women (and one man) and 50 spinning wheels, all spinning up a storm of fiber, and you get the picture...very weird. But it was two and a half days of spinning bliss. Hard to believe one could get such enjoyment from making yarns.

I took a workshop on things to look for in buying a fleece. Interesting tip when looking for fine wool. Test for softness by taking a lock of wool, twist it and rub it against your face just below the nose and above the lip. This is one of your sensitive areas and works to detect softness far better than your fingers or the rest of your face. The picture of the fleece is from a sheep named Tomeye, a lovely Romney. Shorn in 2008. We also saw some of Tomeye's fleece from this past year after he suffered from pneumonia. The fleece reflected his poor health.

From Fleece to Loom

Things have been happening very fast. I bought a fleece. $25 for the whole fleece. I figured it would keep me busy for a year. Th store I bought it from were not sure what breed of sheep but it had lots of crimp similar to a merino and they thought it was lambswool which it could very well be,being fine and soft. Hard to believe but it is white.

I rushed around figuring I needed to clean it now while the sun shone and before I headed down to Victoria to see a loom I had read about for sale. I threw the whole fleece into hot tubs of water and headed out to Victoria. On the way i read about how to clean a fleece. Step 1 - carefully layout the fleece and skirt it by throwing away the not-worth-the-bother-of-cleaning sections. Step 2 - categorize and separate the various qualities. So much for that.

Which brings me to my new loom. 45" Leclerc-look-a-like counterbalance loom. It fit in the car! I just needed a new brake. So now i have to figure out my first project.

From Fleece to Batts

Encouraged by the dyed roving, I moved to the ten year old fleece.  Sometime in the past I must have sorted and cleaned it as it was in good condition.  So I just soaked it in hot water, heated up a pot of water and mixed some dyes in a few jars.  Then I found a brick of tussah silk and decided to dye that too.  For each colour, I added a batch of wool, some tussah silk and some mohair rovings (did I tell you  I had a stash!).  Once dry, I started to learn about drum carding and decided to card each colour into a sepeate batt.  I was careful to take each lock of wool and tease it apart.  Once I had done the pile I carefully placed each lock tip first into the carder.  Then once the carder was close to full (which I discovered on this carder that meant about 1 oz of fleece) I took it off, split it into four and recarded the batt.  Each batt I carded twice and twisted the batt into a bun for storage. Later, I can mix colours and fibres.  So here's some pictures of the silk and spun rovings drying, and the various stages from dyed fleece to batts.