And I have been busy, though you can't tell from here.
I have been spinning, and learning a lot.
I have some photos to post (later) of a bagful of border leicester. The owner was pulling off about half the fleece was going to discard because it was loaded with VM ("vegetable matter"). The fleece was beautiful stuff. The sheep was barn-raised and so it was full of loose chaff on the underside, but clean. Boy, did I nab that! I knew that chaff would simply fall out in the combs-- that's what combs are for! I made short work of that, and then spent some happy hours spinning that wool and learning all kinds of things. Tomorrow I'll pile up all the different ways I spun it and post it for you.
Right now I am busy hand-blending some brown corriedale with white corriedale. I love the feel of corriedale. I want to have a kind of random tweedy look, so I decided to blend by drafting. This is commercial top, and I've been pulling off shanks from each, plucking them apart, then laying the "feathers" into a bundle, varying the arrangement and layout.
To blend, I gather up the bundle, and gently start teasing it out in a roving, not too much at a time, and keeping the ends spaced evenly as much as I can. Then I break it in two, keep the fibers pointing the same direction, and redraft. I do this however many times it takes to get a look I like.
Some of the bundles are more blended than others, giving a softer look. Some have more white, some have more brown. I am spinning the bundles end to end, and working to improve my feel for larger diameter singles. I want to 2-ply this and then use it to weave a scarf, or maybe crochet if there is enough of it. I think it should make a handsome variegated pattern. I promise photos!
