I can Spin..........

.....fingering wool AND worsted wool!

There are 1025 yards in the fingering weight and 275 yards in the worsted weight.  Both are 2-ply.

It seems once you learn to spin, you spin thinner and thinner or skinnier and skinnier.  I wonder why.

I'm in love........

.......with my roving!!! I got these back from Dawn's a little while back.

The deep chocolate brown is Black Border Leicester; the gray is Black/Gray Icelandic Ram; and the cream is Baby Doll.

Looks like I have some spinning to do. Gosh, aren't they beautiful?

Dog Hair - what can you do with it?

Not just any kind of dog hair but the undercoat of a black German Shepherd.
Here is the story: Just after I learned to spin, my mother asked if I would spin her shepherd's undercoat. I thought it would be a way to spin something I didn't have to buy! Yipee!
Through the shedding months, mom religiously combed him and saved every bit. Now came the time I received a pretty good sized package in the mail. I was so excited! After getting home, I opened it and immediately took it to the bath tub for a wash. I used Dawn Dish washing Liquid (mind you, I was very new to processing fiber, too) and pushed the soft down into the soapy, warm water as I leaned over the tub. It was at that moment, I got a whiff and wondered how in the world a wet dog got in the house! Oh, boy!! Okay, after I controlled the dry heaves, I rinsed it with Downy. Alright, I can handle the very clean smell now!
I drained the water out of the tub squeezing the water out of the ready-to-dry down. It was a chore to get all the damp dog hair off me but I succeeded and laid it out on a towel.
Days later, with dry fiber in hand, I was ready to card it. Hummm, it didn't card very well, so I skipped that part. Here comes some spinning time! At the time I tried to spin it -- is when I finally paid attention to the length of the fiber -- a little over 1". After several attempts to get a good enough twist, it worked!! Not only did I spin it, I had enough to fill two bobbins and then plied it! I even went ahead and set the twist, rolled it into a huge ball and sent it back to my mother.
She sent me the sample I scanned and told me she was able to knit a scarf, headband, and two wrist warmers. The color turned out to be a rich chocolate and, unbelievably, does NOT shed!! It is also so very soft and warm.
Anytime I show the knitted sample, people try to guess its origin. When they ask me, I tell them it is called "Quanah."
Where did my mother get a name like that for fiber? It was the name of her gorgeous male Shepherd!
I would certainly work with dog undercoating again...as long as 'mom' washes it!

Home-Spun Wool for my mother

Okay, if you look closely at the blue skein of wool...it was my first attempt at spinning. I don't remember how I dyed it as my friend was giving me instructions and I was doing but not remembering. If I tried to spin like that, on purpose, I wouldn't be able to do it. sigh....
The cream-colored wool was given to my mother for purchasing a Kromski spinning wheel...about 2 lbs. of ready-to-spin roving! Well, to make a long story short, mom is having a difficult time recalling how to spin. She sent this wool (from Colorado) to me so I could spin it for her.
[My wheel of choice was a Fricke after I got to try out almost a dozen different ones that my spinning teacher had available.] I must say, this time it turned out pretty good!! The spun wool will go out tomorrow so mom can knit herself more socks. My next lesson will be...how to twist the skeins better. Can anyone tell me?