Christmas and New Year over, spin 2009

The holidays were surprisingly nice and satisfying. A relatively quite time with several short pleasant family visits and a very good Christmas mass in Tang church. The turkey was a star, 12 lb. free-ranger with lots of flavor. Apricot and rosemary stuffing was good too. New Year's eve means little to me - never did. Always seems like a forced pretentious occasion so just TV and open the back door to let the old year out and front door to let the new one in at midnight.

New Years day means doing hooves and shots for the sheep and removing the rrams. More about that at Tangtales.
SO, the Galway fleece is all washed now and I'm dieing to card it and spin some more. Can't do that though until Fluffie08 is attended to. Goal is to spin up 1000 meters of worsted from her and then try to spin some at, say 10 ply. I'm assuming 10 ply means 10 fibers intertwined - so should that be a 10 fiber single or 2 X 5 fiber singels plied together?? That will have to wait as I've only spun 400 m so far. I really like it's soft luster. Also, the difference is now clear to me between the worsted and wollen spun. I've 100 m or so of lovely Frekkie08 woolen spun (from Rolags rolled sideways from the hand carders) done at 5 1/2 tpi like the Fluffie stuff and it's VERY white and soft but it's "fuzzier" and has less luster then the worsted spun Fluffie08.

Sun sone old nylon tights inspired by a book my son bought me for Christmas - KnitKnit. It's all mad artistic stuff which I probably will not do but it does inspire me to have a go at various things - such as cutting up and spinning my laddered tights. It works - not sure hwt I would make with it - knitted up a little and it's amazingly regular and smooth. Tempted to ply it iwith some wool - but NO, not until I've got much further with my Fluffie stuff - and Glaway stuff - or until I get bored to heck and want to have abash at something else. Have to remember there are no spining police round here - none at all.

I gave my sister my attempt at a Lumra rug. I covered my ass by giving her another present (beangab tray - I love these). She seemed to like it and plans to put it a farm house she and her husband restored some years ago. I hoped it would look good there. Not sure the synthetic non-slip rug backing is the best from an aesthetic point os view as the "rug canvas" but it is remarkably light and very easy to wash. I may get to see it in it's new home some time - or in the bin :).

xmas over

Leigh's Fiber Journal: Galway Cross Fleece 1

Leigh's Fiber Journal: Galway Cross Fleece 1

Leigh's Fiber Journal: Color Blending on Woolcombs

Leigh's Fiber Journal: Color Blending on Woolcombs

The fleece arrives

Got my Galway sheep fleece last night!

Very grateful to the farmer who left it in a designated spot for me to collect.

It makes up for the vile headcold with muscle aches etc. I, and loads of others , currently have.

Separated into 2 kg of leg/side wool and 3 kg of choice back wool , small amount of dagging gone to the flower beds.

This feels very nice and soft. Washed a few locks and the lanolin came off easily with a little washing up liquid. Probably don't need the soap - indeed the locks got very soapy from very little soap.
Spun a bit (of course) and seems to make a nice soft moderately lustrous yarn.
Wonder how this compares with the Bluefaced Leicester as a good wool sheep to do well here in Ireland. I think the Galways's meat may be preferable which would make it a good dual purpose sheep. Now I'm tempted to keep a few Galway sheep - but it's early days. Scouring is next - and this will get a more carefull scouring (in small lots in a laundry bag in the sink) than my own got this summer when I was in a big rush to get them all clean and stored.

Of course, the other projects will be vieing for time with this "foreign fleece" work but bring it on anyway.

Must remember this link :
http://leighsfiberjournal.blogspot.com/2006/09/galway-crossfleece1.html

but for some reason, this doesn't work from here so I'll just go to the blog spot and add the rest of the address from there

http://leighsfiberjournal.blogspot.com/

as she has excellent descriptions of how she handled the fleece from raw to yarn. Might get to that point some time. After Christmas no doubt.

socks done, what next?

After various sessions on the computer looking at different methods of sock knitting (toe up, one circular needle, two circular needles etc) I reverted to kind and made them using 5 DPN's. It started coming back to me (the leg, the heel-turn, the toe taper) as I went along. Had forgotten I'd knitted these as a child (and still do by the looks of them :).

Anyway, they are done and very toasty. They do look like they'd fit Finn McCool, but actually they as designed for my own stubby feet - and allow entry to the wellies. I've washed them and no change - I'm glad to say.

I've finished pulling rolag into the matting and the rug is drying after a bath. I loke the colors and the feel but ubfortunately, I don't think it's good enough to give as a present to my sister - 'though she may deserve it , it being partly her fault that I made it in the first place and surley she should suffer the consequences. I might put backing on it - I'll see in a while.

Now it's busy, busy - and nothing else finished.

All sorts started (spinning this, combing that, making rolags, making batts) - but where's it all going? Getting a bit long in the tooth to be "just practicing" - yet it's good therapy after a recent berievement. I won't go on about the latter as I think there is too much whineing going on in the post-tiger Ireland. I'd love to make a whinometer - a page that scores the national radio broadcasts as per whinges per day and the number of times "they" are blamed. So much indignation - and very little problem solving. Gets on my nerves. On no! I'm whining about whining!

Best shut up.

summer color in winter

Experimenting with some dyed fleece. Some dyed with Landscape "fern" and it's after wash; some with the after wash from a deep red (kept in the garage in a zip lock bag for months) and some with after wash from a mossy green - which came out very light limey green. Making rolags and spinning these in sequence ten plying them so they randomly combine is a very pleasurable thing indeed. Even more so when knitted and you don't know what the mext row's colors will be. The combination is very summery - yet I want to knit it into socks as my feet are getting frozen during this very cold spell. 

One small snag - don't know how to knit socks :(. --- so  going to try Amy Swenson's toe-up short-row worksheet which was free on tehe net.

Don't know how I'll get on, but thank you my for furnishing this as I thik it's probably the only way I'll manage to get the size I want from the various yarn sizes I spinn.

Will have a bash at it tomorrow - hopefully.