Show And Tell

The prompt for today's Kentucky Wool Week photo challenge is Show and Tell, so I'm going to use this as an opportunity to show something I did over the summer and tell how I did it.  If I keep this up, I might eventually get the blog caught back up :-).

Instagram followers might remember taking a video tour of some fleeces getting ready to be shipped off to Stonehedge Fiber Mill and then seeing the following pictures a few weeks later.  The project in the works is a new Lamb Camp yarn that for now I'm calling The Bottle Lamb Edition.  It will be a blend of every single bottle lamb I've ever raised.

I should say the video tour showed at least a tiny bit of wool left from every lamb...except Punkin.  I really, really wanted to include Punkin, the lamb who started it all.  While I didn't have any wool left, I did have some leftover yarn from way back when I paid someone to spin for me before I learned that I liked doing things like that.  I wondered if it would be possible to un-spin some yarn.

In 25 words or less...yarn is really nothing more than fiber held together by twist.  You spin two singles and then you spin those two singles together to get a two ply yarn.  Without getting really complicated, that's all you really need to know to follow what I decided to try.

The first step was to un-twist the two plies.  I tried to do this as a whole skein, but it got way too messy and was headed for disaster, so I started cutting off a yard or so at a time.

I then tied it to the hook on a drop spindle and started twirling it to untwist the plies.

Then I pulled the two plies away from each other.

So far, so good.

Next I tied one of the singles to the drop spindle and twirled it to take out the spinning twist. 

After the twist was removed, I pulled the now unspun yarn apart into 4" pieces and lashed them all onto my hand cards and then brushed the pieces to make sure everything was loose and flowing.  The yarn had been sitting for 18 years so it was a bit compressed and felted.  This was a Huge Job.

Crossing that last and most special name off the board?  Worth every hour.

Lamb Camp Legacy Yarn

After we got Baaxter back under control, I was able to get a couple really sweet pictures of the sheep with the new yarn.  

(new puzzle :-)

I always wonder how much they understand about...life.  I know they understand that getting sheared makes them feel a lot better, but do they know that what's in the basket is the wool from their backs?

Or their kids backs?  Rocky was very, very interested in the yarn.

Remember when I threw Rocky under the bus for being a spoiled sport about getting his picture taken?  Jared...  This is as close to the yarn as he'd get and it was just for a split (and blurry) second.

"Dudes, I don't know nothin'  about that yarn.  I'm just here for the ladies...and the cookies."

So this is the Lamb Camp....Legacy yarn.  It's a limited edition, small batch run, spun from some of the nicest lambs sired by Nistock Farm's Rocky and Jared when they were working over at Tring Farm, before they retired over here.

The yarn is a really versatile DK weight and I think it would be suitable for almost anything, except possibly socks...but I'm not a sock expert, so I could be wrong.  It's comfy and soft, but still has some texture and feels like actual wool.  I'll stop here before I say something disparaging about over processed merino... ;-).

Rocky and Jared are Cotswold crosses and the mommas are crosses of North Country Cheviots and Polypays and maybe a little Dorset, so the blend is a lovely mix of crimpy down type wool with a lovely longwool drape and luster.  I love the natural colors and the soft sheepy feel.  It really is beautiful.

Each washed skein measures 250 yards and the two grays weigh around 3.5 ounces and the white weighs almost 4 ounces, so it's on the heavier end of DK weight.  I can also wind off skeins without washing, for weavers.  Unwashed skeins are measured at 262 yards to account for shrinkage.

I've knit the three color sample and dyed and knit the Forest for the Trees hat.  I've also woven a dollhouse rug  with it for a friend.  I enjoyed each project and am very happy with this fun and useful yarn.  I'm also getting ready to start a small cable project, too, you know...for marketing purposes ;-).

Speaking of marketing, each skein is $18.  And it often goes without saying, but buying this yarn supports not just our farm and sheep, but also Tring Farm, who raised these legacy lambs, and Stonehedge Fiber Mill, who spun the yarn, and our sheep shearers, our veterinarians, our local feed mill,  our hay and straw producers...

By the way (more marketing ;-D) there are still about a dozen Equinox Farm calendars and 4 Lamb Camp calendars left in case anyone is still needing a 2020 calendar!  We are no longer able to recycle paper here (do not get me started!) so I'd love to find them good homes.  Sale prices $10 (farm) and $8 (Lamb Camp).

If You Want To Get All Technical About It

With enough cute corgi pictures to keep it interesting ;-).  And some stats at the end that will probably surprise you.

Even 20 looks overwhelmed with trying to decide how to decide which singles to ply to which to get the most evenly matched skeins in the end. 

Here is what we did:

Re-weigh each finished ball.  The reason?  A big fluffy pile of wool doesn't necessarily weigh the same as a compressed ball of wool.  I used my "science" scale to get really fussy technical.

I then put the ball in a water pitcher (so it wouldn't bounce all around the room) and pulling from the outside of the ball carefully wound it into a two yard skein.

Note yardage.  I love, love, love having a counter on my skein winder*.  It's life changing...well spinning life at least...but spinning is life...no wait, sheeps are life... ;-)

I tied a piece of yarn to the loose end of the single.  I did that so I'd easily know which end I was supposed to start with for plying.

I also tied a couple of tight bow knots to secure the rest of the skein.  I used the bows to be easy to untie but also to help keep track of the outsides of each skein.  

Do the Jethro cipherin'.  Skein #11 actually weighted 2.024 ounces.  It is 220 yards long.  Solve for x to get the yards per ounce, in this case 108.7.

You can do the next part by hand...or use a spreadsheet.  I like math, but love spreadsheets ;-).

I sorted the skeins by yards per ounce and then paired of skein #6 with skein #17, #4 with #9, #3 with #7...

Making sure you have the two loose ends facing the same direction...

 ...and the bows are all facing up (if facing down then the skein is twisted)...

...and your skein winder securely anchored with a corgi butt...

...ply as usual.  My skein winder has a tensioning feature and I cranked it down pretty tight so I didn't go free wheeling off into space.  

The final results?  

First I re-weighed all the plied skeins.  The yardage of each skein could only be as long as the shortest single so there were leftovers on several of the skeins.  The leftover singles were all on the thinner side (longer yardage per ounce) so when they were plied together, the resulting two ply is significantly thinner, hence they are separated out at the bottom.

Ply shrinkage - when you ply the two singles, the plied yard will end up shorter than the original singles because as you twist the two yarns together, the yarns are no longer straight.  The more you twist them, the shorter the yarn will become.  

That skein with the shrinkage of 14 was either plied with more twist or I wrote something down wrong.  Just looking at the finished skein I can't see a significant difference from the others so regardless it will knit up just fine.  Likewise with the shrinkage of 4 yards.  

Overall, I am much happier with my finished yarn this time.  The difference between skeins now is much less than any yarns I've spun previously.  Plus I found it interesting to track all the stats.  

While I was thinking along the lines of statistics, I decided to track my time spinning and plying.  It took me 27 hours to spin the singles and 6 hours to ply them.  I didn't figure in my time cipherin'.  That would have been an embarrassing number ;-).

Want to take this a little further?  If I paid myself $10 an hour, that's $330 just for the spinning work.  It costs $10 per sheep for shearing and about an hour for skirting, so another $10 there.  $24 to wash and $27.50 for processing into roving, not counting gas and time going up to the mill and back.  

Just counting BASIC yearly costs for hay, grain, bedding, vet work...it costs us $100 to produce a fleece.  That doesn't include mortgage, insurance, utilities, fuel, buying the sheep, farm equipment... Also, spinning wheels aren't cheap.  Neither are the workshops I've traveled to take...

The moral of this story?  I might just print this out and hand it to the next person who can't believe I can't sell them a handspun and hand knit sweater.  That's $501.50 Just. For. The. Yarn.  Figure in the weeks I spent knitting the Muffin sweater?  Even if it wasn't Muffin...it would be priceless.

*     *     *     *     *

*My skein winder is from Nistock Farms.  Even if they weren't good friends of ours, I would say this is the very best skein winder I've ever used.  It's solid and stable, easy to use winding on or off and being able to easily track yardage is...life changing ;-).

The 2019 Tour de Fleece

Mini Maisie and Big Maisie did a great job cheer leading and occasionally threatening the My Favorite Sheep team this year.  I loved seeing posts from people reporting in to that affect :-D.  I made the mistake of letting her come out into the aisleway for a private Cheerio party one night...and have been fighting that battle every night since :-o.

I got my whole 2 1/2 pounds finished.  The last six ounces were a bit of a slog mentally, but it's summer and most everything is a slog mentally right now.  All in all it was a fun spin.

I liked my two ounce bundles plan.  That was a pretty do-able daily amount of spinning and a couple days I was able to spin two and catch up from days I didn't get as much done as I planned.  The other benefit was I knew when I plied two together they would easily fit on my big bobbins.

This has become my basic plan any time I spin a large amount of yarn.  I spin each bundle, trying hard to match the thickness and twist of each to the next to the next...  That never happens.  Even with a spin card and sampling, I never keep consistent throughout.

In the past I've wound off each ply into a ball and marked the number.  Theoretically the practice is ply the first with the last, the second to the second from the last...  I can't even get that consistent so I try to eyeball each ball and match it accordingly.  

That plan doesn't work super well for me either because after it's in a ball I can only see the outer wraps of yarn.  What's inside could be totally different.  Yeah...  I got popped by that that on a couple of the Muffin skeins and ended up with several skeins that were thicker than the others.  

I over thought that came up with a plan to counteract that...and it worked!  This is my most consistent spinning to date.  

Washed and drying - my favorite part of spinning.

1,850 yard of worsted weight yarn, skeined up and ready to become a sweater.

Exactly what I wanted :-D. 

Yarn Along - A Barnyard Scarf

One of my favorite things to do is to sit down and spin yarn from our flock.  I have a big plan for the Tour de Fleece this year involving spinning enough yarn for a sweater, but mostly I only get allow myself an hour or so here and there and then I end up with baskets full of small amounts of yarn...that just sit there.  

I do enjoy the baskets of yarn.  There's something joyful about all the different colors, textures, weights and especially all the individual sheep tucked in there, but I've been trying to think of something special to make that would utilize those small skeins.

I decided to try weaving a multi-yarn scarf.  I used my handspun bits and bobs for the warp (the up and down threads) and some Nistock Farms Golden Fleece Cotswold singles for the weft (the side to side threads).  

Since the warp threads were all different thicknesses, I used a reed that would accommodate the thickest yarns.  Actually, I started with a 6 dent reed (6 ends per inch) but didn't like it and, you know, ripped it out ;-).  The 8 dent reed worked reasonably well, but a 10 would have been better.

I wanted to showcase the individual handspun yarns rather than the solid color weft, so I worked for a warp faced weave (more warp showing than weft).  I know who most of the yarns are.  The white Cotswold is Keebler, the warm brown is Petunia, the thinner white is Peabody, the too thick for the 10 dent reed gray is Rebecca Boone, the medium weight gray is probably Jester...

And it's too hot to even ask 20 to model it, so I hung it on the barn ladder.  Next to the fire extinguisher.  

Some day it will cool down enough to wear.

Regarding books...I have lost the energy to listen to "grown up" books and after thoroughly enjoying the Terry Prachett young adult books last year, decided to delve into the Newbery Medal Winners list this year.  I may just stay there.  I've listened to The Girl Who Drank the Moon, The One and Only Ivan, Moon Over Manifest, Walk Two Moons and Bridge to Terabithia.  

I highly recommend them all :-).

Yarn Along - June

I decided if I was going to get back to normal regular blogging, I'd better have something ready for the Yarn Along.  That and I'd picked up a skein of Rhapsody in Hue's Equinox Farm yarn and I was dying to try it out ;-).

Melanie did a spring and fall colorway and I picked spring.  I'm not sure why, as I much prefer fall, but I was probably feeling sentimental about the redbuds, which were as beautiful this spring as they were when this picture was taken several years ago.

The redbud blooms might be gone, but the yarn still looks right at home with a backdrop of Johnny Jump Ups on the Wool House porch.

My knitting mascot for this project is Silke, a super sweet lamb from Little Cotton Rabbits.  I've been trying to purchase one for several years and finally got lucky (they sell out in a minute when she lists them!) last fall...winter...?  If I'd kept the blog current I'd know for sure :-/.  Anyway, she took the first frogging with great courage and luckily we haven't had any more trouble.

Melanie did half the skeins with Merino and half with Blue Faced Leicester.  I chose the BFL since I'm...all together now...a coarse wool girl ;-), but it's not coarse.  It's very soft and smooth...and I'll be happy to get back to some good old Texel or Jacob when I'm finished ;-).  

The colors are really pretty though and I'm having fun working with it.  I think she may have a few skeins left from the festival if case you are interested in knitting along :-).  

For my book...well, I listened to some really good ones over the winter and during the Iknitarod/Iknitaredux.  I actually have some Friday Flashback pictures to post from the epic journey, so I'll share that list then.  

For this spring?  Meh... I've only listened to one book that I've really enjoyed.  But I really enjoyed it.  It's the final book in a series of three.  I've listened to them all and loved all three.  They are The Rosie Project, The Rosie Effect and The Rosie Result, but Graeme Simsion.  

I think you could listen to just the last one and not be lost, but why.  Start at the beginning and fall in love with all the characters and the last one will be just that much better.  They are cute and funny and the last one really makes you think.  Just brilliant.

Joining in with Ginny.

Fast Food

This nest is on the corner of the Wool House and was actually built last year and remodeled for this year.  Look at all the wool and yarn :-).  

I'm not sure how momma birds do it.  All those open mouths.  I guess they are able to somehow keep track of who's been fed each trip.  It looks like she fed half of the worm to one baby and the other half to another.  I didn't notice that until I looked at the pictures.

In and back out in a flash!