Playing with Fiber

I thought I would share pictures of the latest fleece I am working with. This is from Carrie. Her fiber is gray in color with black "hairs" (for lack of a better word) scattered throughout. Makes for a very pretty batt.....and very, very pretty yarn. Her fiber is always soft. Feels like silk. :.) I had already carded and spun up her fleece from 2007 so I decided that it would be fun to blend her 2008 fleece with a bit of soy silk......which is pictured above. This was after the first run through the carder. I put the blend through a second time and it came out just lovely!! And this isn't even one of her better fleeces. She had lambs the spring of 2008....and when Carrie has lambs she tends to put all of her energy into her lambs.....and not her fleece. There was a bit of cotting on this one. At first I thought it was the entire fleece.....but it ended up being just a small bit up around the neck area. It's been alot easier to deal with than what I had thought it would be. The small felted bits are coming out rather nicely with the carding and I'm left with an incredibly soft batt to play with. So far I have about 3/4 of her fleece blended and carded up. Haven't quite decided what I will do with it yet though. Part of me is saying "shawl.....lace shawl". We'll see. :.)

Here is an updated picture of the aran doggie sweater I've been working on. This is of the belly part and the turtleneck portion is being knitted. That was a couple of days ago. As of today the sweater is completely done. Instead of doing a full turtleneck, I opted for a mock turtleneck instead. My schnauzer isn't alway the most patient of canines when it comes to putting on a turtleneck sweater. Most of the times he is ready to go once the sweater is on and doesn't want to wait to have the turtleneck turned down. The sweater is a bit snug on him.....as I was afraid it would be. Ever since he got sick last fall, he has put on a bit of weight and is rather chubby. He might become more active when warmer weather arrives and lose a bit of the extra weight. Who knows. Until then he can wear it as it is. I think he would rather have his sweaters a bit snug than too loose anyway. Less chance of him getting it caught on something when he is outside exploring. I hope to be able to share pictures soon......if he is willing to be a cooperative model that is. :.)