The Start Of The 2019 Tour De Fleece

As I posted last week, our team captain this year is Maisie.  She's let it go to her head just a little, but so far, so good...unless something has happened late today and I haven't heard yet.  I happen to have a small sheep in my "inside flock" that reminds me of Maisie, so I've picked her to be my spinning mascot.

She's wearing a warm jacket because I have turned the air conditioner in the Wool House on high :-o.

I'm spinning something pretty neat this year.  17 years ago, when I was just getting started with our wool flock, we were gifted five Jacob sheep from a kind shepherdess in Indiana.  I really didn't know what to do with So Much Wool (hahahahaha), so I had some processed into roving and some into quilt batts.  

I think I must have divided up the black and white wools because I remember having some light gray batts and one dark one that I kept for myself in hopes I could find someone to make a real quilt from our barn quilt. Sigh...

You know...I thought this spring...rather than just sitting in the loft, that dark batt could be re-run as roving.  Roving from our very first five Jacob sheep.  Wouldn't that be neat?  Like an historical do-over now that I'm a better spinner...and those sheep are no longer with us.

This year for the Tour I'm spinning Elizabeth, Esther, Jester, Joshua and Jacob :-).  There are 2.5 pounds of dark gray roving.  I'd like to spin all of that, but I'm off to a slow start, so I may not be able to reach that goal...but I'm going to try.

So what is Mini Maisie looking at in the picture above?

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Posting this here so I can post it to the blog. It will all make more sense in a bit 😉. #tdf2019 #jacobsheep

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady) on Jul 7, 2019 at 7:03pm PDT

The legacy of those five Jacobs :-).

And we're off!

Grays

I completed Clue 2 for the Hole and Sons Tales of Purbeck MKAL (mystery knitalong) on Saturday. Don't get too excited.  It was a short clue ;-).  I'm approaching the end of my white yarn and enjoying the pattern so I know I'm going to finish the shawl and therefore need more yarn.  Since I'm ahead of schedule with the knitting, early Sunday morning was a perfect time to do some spinning.

I'd found a small bundle of light gray core roving in my stash.  Core roving is two colors, one wrapped around the other.  This particular batch was medium gray core with white wrapped around the outside.  When you spin it the yarn looks almost tweedy.  Hmmm, that might be a nice transition from the white yarn into the medium gray yarn.

Drop spindles are a perfect tool for samples like this.  I keep a spindle (or two, maybe three ;-) at the house for just such instant gratification.  Golding spindles are my favorite and this beautiful swan spindle (and sheep holder/stand - look closely) was a gift from a special friend.  I've been dying to give it a whirl.

Nothing says class like spinning with a fancy spindle...and then skeining your yarn around a cardboard box ;-).

The other option I found in my stash was a few ounces of dark gray Jacob roving.  I'm trying to remember when I did the three colors of roving - light, medium and dark gray.  It's been awhile.  If I had to guess, this would be Elizabeth, Jester, Joshua, Crazy Esther and maybe Emily and Annabelly.

Here are the two new color choices in tiny skeins.  The small ball of gray is the Jester yarn I already have picked out.  The light gray core roving on the right - now this is kind of odd - is a completely different gray from the other grays next to it.  Not that the other grays are brown exactly, but there is a hint of a muted color in there that is missing in the light gray.  Pretty, but not for this project.

So here is the color plan.  The gray mini skein is the same yarn from the ball above, just re-skeined. I'm going to switch over to the medium gray next, maybe with the next clue, and then finish with the dark gray. Actually, I'm toying with finishing the very end with a red/brown edge.  Any guesses as to why?

Eli, displaying his grays.

Some phone shots from later in the day.  Thanks to another good friend who had come over to pick up half of Woody's fleece and ended up giving me a spinning lesson (this is quite a racket I have going on here :-D) I have nearly a full bobbin of (hopefully) perfectly matching yarn to ply up today. I was planning on spreading mulch, but gee, it's raining ;-).

Liddy prefers driveway grass.  We don't have another sheep on this farm that we could pay to weed eat.  She's a keeper!

And when she gets tired, she sits down with the rest of the dogs ;-).