Ok, so I've spent the better part of the day spinning a corespun yarn of mohair locks. The yarn is spun in 'mohairy' style, wrapped loosely around a core of vintage lambswool 2 ply yarn I picked up at a tag sale. Honestly, the finished product is really gorgeous, though I'll never recoup the time spent making it by selling it--I've already named it "Labor Of Love" yarn due to the hours spent on it. For now, I'm considering crocheting it into a boa, maybe. Maybe not.

The fiber is from lovely, unprocessed angora goat locks (aka mohair), washed and dyed in shades of greens and pinks and browns. It arrived in yet another great big box of fiber. It looks gorgeous in the bag--like a bag of luxury. That is, until you start fiddling with it and realize just how much dirt is stuck in the locks. Now I realize that this is just the nature of the beast (literally), and I have no wish to insult the goat grower/owner/fiber dyer in question. I've already done that, unwittingly, once before, to an animal owner, and I promise not to do it again! That insult was due to my own stupidity of just not understanding how much dirt to expect in locks. That was as a novice spinner who has only bought piles of commercially processed rovings in their stark, straight rows, ready to spin without regard to the amount of feed and work and grease and hay and bugs and dye that's been added, removed and tended prior to their arrival in a neat little box from the USPS. Though I still have volumes to learn about spinning, I realize how stupid I was then. I know better, NOW.

However, despite my growing knowledge as I spin daily, I still have issues with mohair locks. My lingering and painful question about locks is how the HECK do you get all of the dirt out of them? I teased these open prior to carding, carded them on my brand new Strauch Finest 405 Drum Carder, hand picked them down to the tweezer level, and still there are chunks of vm (vegetable matter) in the form of hay and straw and thistles and a few bugs and who-knows-what else in there. And I know that when I wash this yarn to set the twist, I'll get to witness yet more dirt as the water will be gross for several changes until I get it to wash clean. The finished product will be great, but whether I'll ever finish this remains to be seen. Blech.

What's a girl to do?