Fiber Fun!!

I've been having fun playing with fiber. Lots and lots of fun!! Yesterday I finished washing up the last of the 2009 fleeces that I kept for myself. Wow! There were some beautiful fleeces this year! It was amazing.....especially considering the winter we had and the acquisition of a new llama (Levi) who insisted on eating over the sheep instead of next to them. It was also challenging to keep washing until all the fleeces were done. With each newly washed fleece, I just wanted to drop everything and play with it. :>) With all the shetland fleeces washed, I only have a bit of alpaca and llama wool to wash. Then I can finally settle down and enjoy it all. :>)

Pictured below is the batts that I carded up in between washes and rinses. The first set of batts pictured are a shetland/llama/soy silk blend. I used moorit shetland (this was skirtings from a fleece that sold....mostly britch) with this lovely red llama that I purchased.....and added a small amount of soy silk (for strength). This will be spun into sock yarn......someday. It was a lovely, lovely blend. One that I would love to repeat some day. I think I ended up with 8-9 ounces in all.


I've been spinning quite a few sample skeins lately on my drop spindle. Just too impatient to see what the finished yarn will look like. :>) Anyway, the skein on the left is shetland/llama/soy silk blend (from the batts pictured above). The skein on the right is shetland/alpaca blend. The shetland used was a light cream color, while the alpaca was a lovely red color. The sample skein came out incredibly soft!! Even the shetland/llama blend came out feeling soft. Not as soft as the shetland/alpaca blend....but still quite a bit softer than what you would expect from britch. Both sample skeins were spun woolen on the drop spindle. The fiber was carded on hand cards.

The last batts pictured are of a shetland/llama/icicle top blend. The shetland is shetland black.....the llama is gray (that I purchased).....with a touch of icicle to give it a bit of sparkle. I had blend the shetland and llama together and really didn't care for the way the finished batt looked. Kinda dull. So I added a touch of icicle top and was amazed at the end result. The picture on the left shows the coloring of the batt, while the picture on the right really shows the sparkle of the icicle. Only half of this is carded up. I want to do a total of four batts....enough for socks. Then I would love to use the remaining shetland and blend it with either with white llama (also purchased) or with some red alpaca. Haven't decided which yet. All I know is that I'm more than ready to finally see the last of the black shetland. Even with gifting some of it, there was still quite a bit left. That was one pretty large fleece!!