Cold Sheeping and other Adventures

This is the year.  The year I look back in December 2015 at my baskets and shelves and the nooks and crannies where I've squirrelled and stashed away yarn and fibre and fleece and I see that I've made an appreciable dent in it all.

There are bags and bags and bags of dyed and washed fleece sitting patiently waiting on top of the bookcases in our dining room.  Blues and greens and oranges and purples and, and, and........the list goes on.

the bags and bags just waiting to tumble down on us.....

and this isn't all of it.......not by a long shot

I've started to use my drum carder as it was actually meant to be used.  Who would have thought it?  You follow instructions and get a better result??!  It'll never catch on in my house.

I like unexpected colour combinations.  I carded a chartreuse green bundle of fleece with a handful of lilac/grey/green fleece.  The lilac stuff was much softer than the chartreuse and shorter-stapled, too.  There are delicious little knots of purpley grey just waiting to become interesting knubbles in the yarn when the batts are spun.  I don't know just yet if these batts are destined for Etsy or for me.  We'll see.













Better labelling is in my future this year, too.  I could have sold mountains of dyed fibre in the shop had I just taken the time to label the bag with what it actually contained!!  Some fleeces are easy to identify, others - not so much!

this fleece, for example - well..... it's definitely wool.......

So, this month at least, I'm going batty :o)

I treated myself to some soft merino blue top and laid it out to see what I had in the stash that would go with it.  I had a vague idea of wanting something Springlike.  Anyway, this is the resulting pile of fibre before carding.  We have - blue merino top, hand dyed faux silk in a kind of greyish green colurway, bright green merino top and some hand dyed turquoise and teal faux silk.

Batt in waiting......

finished Spring batt.  This one made it into the shop on Etsy

 and since I'm feeling good and random this sunny Thursday (yes, that's right, the sun is shining on Scotland!  I know!  I'm surprised, too!) here's a bonus chicken pic of my girls in the back garden last summer.

the girls say 'Happy Spinning and Knitting, guys!'