Last week's wrap up

Later and later I know. Let's just blame the weather shall we? Feels like I didn't do much last week except deal with cold and snow and ice or prepare to deal with cold and snow and ice. We're still looking at another week of solid freeze and endless toting of hot water buckets and hay.

On the fiber front I continued to weave off my linen warp with the silk left over from another project. I'm nearly done so maybe I'll get it off the loom and take some pictures of it this week.

I also washed two Pygora fleeces in a new wool shampoo I'm experimenting with. The fleeces are lovely, but I'm not yet convinced about the shampoo. I may have to give them one more wash. Both fleeces -- Rosetyler and Donnanoble -- unfortunately, have a lot of guard hairs. They are both classified as type B in the Pygora world, but I think they are on the very fine side of B. The new fleece that Donnanoble is growing right now even looks like a C to me - almost no curl at all, just very soft cashmere. In any case, the guard hairs mean they will have to be dehaired. I'm thinking about the best way to do that. Lock by lock would work, but is a little too daunting if there's some other faster method out there.

Rosetyler

Rosetyler

Rosetyler. This color seems a little too creamy. She's more grey I think.

Rosetyler washed

Donnanoble

Donnanoble

Donnanoble washed

Clementine

The box of Clementine's messy lamb fleece still looks every bit as full as when I started working on it awhile ago. I haven't weighed it, but the whole box of washed curls is probably 5 pounds. Because the curls aren't in the best condition -- cotted and full of gunk -- I lose about half of it to waste. It's such a slow process. I've only managed to produce about 2 oz of clean locks in the past week or two. One lock at a time. The major change in my strategy is to try to finish all the combing before doing any more spinning. This is hard for me. :)  It's like being given a really delicious piece of candy and then being told to wait to eat it...indefinitely. Oy.

Finally, my coin purse/ wallet hardware arrived for the next iteration of the horse hair project. I've only just started tying the horse hair onto the smaller coin purse frame. I didn't take any pictures, but it looks promising. The other change I made in this project was to set aside the mane hair for the time being and use tail hair. Yes, poor Licorice, our little black and white paint pony, donated a chunk of tail fibers. He was not certain if he was on board with the plan or not, but he complied. For my part, I can say the tail hairs are definitely easier to work with. Though they're no picnic either. Pictures of this next week.

Now, it's time to get back to thawing water buckets.