I just wanted to post pics of my first work with raw fleece. I bought some Targhee wool ‘in the grease’ just before Christmas. I recently took some of it, and processed it myself, from raw to spun. I can’t even imagine the time and energy it must take to do this without the washing machine method of cleaning the wool (rinse and spin, no agitation) a salad spinner, and my drum carder. I know people still do this whole process by hand, and if you do, I bow down to you…you have perseverence, patience, and more time than I could possibly devote to the process.

So, though it’s still quite a bit of work work, even with all of the machines involved , I did take great satisfaction in going from grease wool to yarn, and will probably repeat the process when I can get my hands on some really clean, soft fleece again. However, at this point, I am not likely to become someone who dyes everything themselves. It’s just not me. I like incorporating other people’s color schemes into my work. I like supporting artists who make gorgeous hand painted rovings and locks and fiber and batts, and I also like the convenience and colors in some of the commercial blends, so I will most likely always supplement my stash with those items, because it’s a whole lot of fun to sit down with roving and have gorgeous yarn about an hour later, you know?

Anyhow, here’s a photo of 4 shades of the dyed Targhee. The upper right is undyed, and the rest are my colors:

Here’s a skein I spun up using the pinky/brown/reddish color. It’s named !Accomplishment! because of all of the work involved in getting it from start to finish. It’s plied with purple linen yarn and little knots that have gray felt scraps in each knot, like little bows. Despite having really short staple, and me overspinning a bit to compensate for that, and my carding that made it neppy, this skein is really soft…amazingly soft for a ’sproingy’, poofy yarn:

And that is all I have to say about that. Two posts in one day–whew!