Fiber Fun!!

It's hard to believe that it's been over a week since my last post. Life has sure been keeping me busy lately. Although.....I did find some time to play. Pictured above is the results from my day of fiber fun. This is all from my one sheep, Tristan. He has some very beautiful fiber that is so incredibly soft to the touch. It goes from a light gray (almost white) to areas where it is appears to be almost black in color. So this variation lends to some beautifully dyed fiber with lots of wonderful shades. Usually I just keep this fun stuff for my own personal use and will sell the raw fleece (right off the sheep). This year I'm doing something a bit different. This year I'm actually offering up my beautifully dyed fiber for sale....along with washed natural colored fiber. I get so many positive comments on projects made from my dyed fiber that I decided it's time to finally make it available to others. Besides it might actually put a bit more into the sheeps' feed fund....which can't hurt any.....especially with the rising cost of hay these days. My fiber can be found on my etsy site - MadeForEwe.etsy.com ......so plesase visit and take a look.....and share with a friend.

Dyeing fiber isn't the only thing I've been playing with. My spinning wheel has been getting quite the workout lately too. Not only did I finish spinning up the hand-painted Polypay, but I am slowly making my way through balls of singles that have been waiting to be plyed. So far I have all of the North Ronaldsay finished and ready to be used in a future knitting project. The last ball of Gotland singles is now on the spinning wheel being plyed. The rest of the Gotland is just waiting for the twist to be set....then it, too, will be ready for knitting. After the Gotland is all plyed I have one ball of Cheviot singles and then two balls of the hand-painted Polypay singles that will need to be plyed before playing with something new.

I have also been washing fleeces. So far I have washed 3 fleeces (out of 15). My new outdoor sink has just been set up and is now ready for use. I can't wait to give it a try! I've been using my bathtub to wash fleeces in....at least this year anyway. It's been working wonderfully, but I'm a bit concerned about clogging the pipes. You just can't always catch all those stray little pieces of wool that then end up going down the drain. So it will be nice being able to wash my fleeces outside and simply let the water drain into a flower bed. It has been fun washing fleeces though. They have been washing up beautifully and it just makes me want to spin even more. I think this is the best group of fleeces I've gotten off of my sheep to date.

Of course all this fiber fun means that my quilting has been languishing a bit. Haven't sewn a single stitch all week long. I did start on two new embroidered denim pillows though. Although all I've managed to get done so far is the embroidery. Haven't even started on putting the pillows together. While I may not have done any quilting lately, I have picked up my knitting needles. Although not quite as often as I would like. I have started on the right front panel of my lace sweater. I have about 30 rows done so far. This isn't one of the quickest projects I have done, but, then again, I haven't been getting in as much knitting time either. I'm still enjoying it and that is all that really counts. :)