Yarn and Construction

I've finished the first batch of yarn from Jimmy.   This is the first "from scratch" attempt for us.  The fleece was straight off the animal.  Chet picked it clean of vegetable matter, then I ran it through the Fancicard twice (to blend in some of the white) and pulled it off into roving.  After that, I spun it (my favorite part) and voila - yarn!  It took about a week of working a couple hours each evening.

We have a building on the property that has a brand new roof on it that we are converting into an office/workspace for me.  It didn't have a floor, so they are lifting it off the ground to pour concrete.  When they lifted it, a corner of it collapsed.  Glad I wasn't home to see it.

After the floor, inside walls will need to go in as well as doors and windows, then electricity.  Maybe by this time next year it will be ready to use.

It's Roving!

My second batch of roving off the Fancicard!  I couldn't wait to spin the first one, so the photo had to wait for this one.  I pulled it right off the carder through a diz.  This fleece is from our boy, Mulligan James (below), from last year's shearing.  It's incredibly soft and spun up like a dream.

Leftovers

While prepping the fleece for the carder, a lot of smaller pieces must be discarded.  Hating to waste any part of the fiber, I wanted to find some way to use the leftovers.  Spring will hopefully be coming soon and the birds are always picking up things to make their nests.  When Chet grew cotton in Arizona, I'd find that the birds would pick at the cotton and take away to the trees to make their spring nests.   Alpaca fleece would work well too. 

In the back are 6" balls made from cut grapevines.  In the front are empty suet containers.  I'm getting an Etsy shop set up and will be selling them there:  http://www.fleecefurandfeathers.etsy.com/.  I hope the birds here will like them and I find some designer birds nests this summer. 

We're on our way to getting 7 inches of snow today.  It's heavy wet snow that I haven't seen since I lived back east 10 years ago.

Everyone says that we should have had some 70-80 degree days here by now.  I guess El Nino is in full force this year.

The Fancicard has arrived

My Pat Green Fancicard motorized carder came yesterday from Canada.  The Greens had to get it across the US border before the Olympics started up there.  Otherwise, I would have been waiting until after the games were over.

This is about all I've been able to do with it so far - unpack and read the directions.  I don't have a workspace yet for it, but hopefully will be able to do something about that this weekend.  I was a little disappointed the booklet didn't mention too much about alpaca fleece, but I'm sure there lots of places on the internet and YouTube to get some tips.  I've got lots of fleece right now to work with and I'm hoping to be able to make some nice batts and roving.  Stay tuned.