Monday, March 20, 2006

The Motherload!
I went to a meeting of the Southeastern Viriginia Spinning Guild last Tuesday night. It's a long story how I got there besides the drive, but in Jan of this year I joined. I thought since I was a new spinner that I should be emerced in all things spinning. I have met a lovely group of ladies and am well on my way to learning new things.

While at the meeting I met a woman named Debbie (I hope I have spelled this correctly), and she brought a HUGE box with her along with some rather large plastic bags. She told everyone that she is moving and just doesn't have the desire to move more than she needs to the new house. So there were some interesting looking roving and some full fleeces. After the smoke cleared of everyone getting what they desired, there sat the two huge bags of unwashed fleeces from Debbie's sheep. I got on the floor and looked at the fleeces. As I mentioned before, I am a new spinner and a new knitter, so this was like gold to me. I hemmed and hawed around and then asked her one last time was she sure she didn't want me to pay her for the fleeces. I was perfectly willing to fork over some cash to have these fleeces. I told her that I had never washed or carded any fleece. She told me it would be better to screw up a free fleece than one I had paid $50 for. That made perfect sense to me. Ugh. What have I gotten myself into? Now I have to go out and buy some net bags and stink up my spare bathroom tub and see if I can do this. I would do it outside in tubs but changing the water while it's 30 degrees outside just isn't appealing to me at this time. So here is the motherload of what I was lucky enough to score. Further posts will be of me learning how to wash and card this stuff.




3 comments:

Melissa said...

Just wait for it to turn warmer and get after it!! :)

Anonymous said...

Cayli ( here is the direct link to her post http://spinayarnforewe.blogspirit.com/archive/2006/03/04/surprise.html) wrote about sending out some fleece to be processed. I live near a woolen mill ( Autumn House Farm, http://www.autumnhousefarm.com/ ) I'm not sure but Harriet might process the wool for you. Hope this helps!
What a score! : D What a score! : D

vlb5757 said...

Thanks for the link Amanda. I will check it out. I bought some mesh bags yesterday to get started washing my free wool to get some practice.