New fleeces! How to wash them!

This past weekend was the Common Ground Fair in Unity, ME full of workshops and veggies and wicked good food and the smell of sweet annie and of course, the fleece tent. A WHOLE TENT FULL OF BAGS AND BAGS OF ANIMAL FLEECES. This includes not just sheep (all different breeds) but also alpaca fleeces, angora goats, cashmeres, and some angora bunny and horse hair. It is an overwhelming experience of sticking your hands in every bag, a process that leaves you with lanolin moisturized skin and a distinct barn smell. After doing my first walk through I began to descend on bags of sheep fleece that called out to me. I was looking for something clean, unique, long staple (better for hand spinning), soft, with good crimp (means more wool per staple), and affordable (between $5-$10 a pound). After touching every bag (whoops) I approached the table where I could lay them out with 6 bags of fleece (another whoops). Upon inspection I narrowed it down to 3 different sheep, the ones without large amounts of timothy seed heads or burdock, two plants that are insanely frustrating to card as they send seeds throughout the wool. I left the fair with 1 icelandic colored sheep whose fleece is brown, long, and grey in places, sometimes looking eerily like human hair, and 2 white curly haired sheep with long staples, perfect for dyeing. On the ride home back to MDI the car smelled of sheep and of the potential for many skeins and experimental dyeing projects. 
At home now, before any of the fiber fun can begin I have to wash these fleece. Here's how to wash your newly acquired fleece! Try and do this as quickly as you can from bringing them home. Dirty fleece should really not sit around in a plastic bag as these contain moisture which has the potential to felt your entire fleece. Not fun. Unless you want an unintentional pelt. Once clean and dry it is best to store fleece in cloth or paper bags.
Step 1. I warned my roommates. That for the afternoon our bathroom would smell like a herd of sheep found shelter in our bathroom. Because indeed, the smell is strong. 
Step 2. I filled the bathtub with HOT water from the tap. If it is not hot enough, add a pot of boiling water. 
Step 3. Slowly stir in 1/2 cup commercial dish soup, under the water. DO NOT agitate or make bubbles. That could felt it.
Step 4. Leave for an hour.
Step 5. Drain water and squeeze out fleece, placing it in a bucket temporarily as you...
Step 6. Refill tub with HOT water and introduce fleece again. Soak for another hour. Repeat this step one more time, till water runs relatively clean.
Step 7. Lay out to dry on screens. It may take up to a week to fully dry (make sure weather is good!)

Back in the fleece game

SO I lied. More blog posts didn't follow as the spring and summer season swept me away with all the vegetables that needed someone to baby them until harvest time. I have ended up on Mount Desert Island for the farming season and am thankful its fall for many reasons. First, because for someone who is obsessed with food I revel in the pumpkin bread and apple cider donuts. And then there is the slowing down of things on the farm and the cool weather that means wearing my favorite sweaters. And then there is WOOL! This is the time I start dyeing and spinning again. 

So here is an update:

I took care of alpacas for a lil while

And quickly decided that they are odd odd creatures, despite their coats being super soft. As I teetered around and fed them their strict diets I felt them silently judging me. And sometimes I got spit on. 

Then I went to shearing school!!

There is something very nerve wracking about having a fast moving large blade in your hands and attempting to give a haircut to a squirming beast that weighs more than you. All my sheep victims left with alternative style haircuts of uneven buzzing... I'm hoping to practice more in the future...

Before and After....  

And then summer hit and I got consumed by my ducks, dog, vegetables, vegetables, more vegetables, and some dishes (part time dishwashing job). But I'm back! For real this time, I plan to keep track of my fiber happenings here as they tend to deliciously consume my free time from October on...

Spring update

Part of the "Lost Sheep" name comes from the fact that over the course of 1 year, I follow the farming season to multiple locations. Mostly it's to a few different farms on the Maine coast, but now I am back in MA starting seeds. If my seeds were sheep, they would be lost too. This past week I planted my dye plants of choice for this coming season, dyers weld (which turns wool yellow) and indigo (the famous blue). Before I harvest these colors this summer and fall they will have crossed three state lines, growing in various locations like the heated floor of my parents kitchen, an alpaca farm where I will be farm sitting in April, and my bedroom and then garden in Bar Harbor where I will be spending the vegetable season. And here is a pic of them still sleeping!

Though I haven't been doing a lot of spinning since I left the cabin in Gouldsboro, I am gearing up for a trunk show here in my home town. I also finished the hand processing DIY wool zine that covers everything you could ever want to know and probably a lot of random stuff you don't care about in regards to working with wool! Yaaa! It covers choosing and finding a fleece, washing, carding, dyeing, spinning, and knitting. Here is the finished cover:

It is available on the etsy shop.

Fiber things happening this spring which are exciting and fantastic:

-trunk show!

-alpacasitting 50 alpacas!

-shearing school!

-fiber frolic!

Hold on to your knitted pants. There will be more blog posts.

Anywhooo spring time life is here and it is good. 

Etsy shop open for business!

I have decided to join this online shopping trend thingy and open an Etsy store for the wool. You can find it here and pay by credit card!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/LostSheepSpinnery

Thanks for your support!

Conquering the sweater

I have this goal to knit a sweater each winter. It helps me get rid of a bunch of random wool I have in an epic suitcase of yarn as well as take up those long hours of winter darkness when I can’t work outside, I’m not eating meat and potatoes, and not sleeping. Lets face it, a farmers winter is a twisted version of that relaxing summer vacation everyone envisions, except with lots and lots of winter squash and for me, knitting (and spinning!). Last year I made that huge sweater (about 10 sizes too big) out of my first attempts at spinning which turned out in the shape of a weird wool dress. I felted it to shrink it and then it was a mini weird wool dress. It soon became a dog sweater. This year, 2 years in to my life goal, I succeeded! Though I dreamed of fancy cables and other stitches I stayed simple due to the frequently changing yarn color to use up old wool of relatively similar weight. I made a top down sweater (starting from the neckline) and it was incredibly easy. Seriously. Ever want to make a sweater? Do it. It is essentially a giant tube with two tubes sticking off it as arms. And when you put it on you will be in a warm, homemade tube of wool. Yum. Here is the pattern I used. Let me know if you want a better copy lemme know and I can send one along. 

Queering the gender of occupation

This does (somewhat) relate to wool I swear... just had to comment on it the amount of times I have been told its so “feminine” and “domestic” that I like to spin and knit.

I find myself constantly occupying extreme (and oppositional) binaries, in attempts to chip away their rough walls. The realm of spinning and farming is such a place for me. Spinning and knitting are seen so connected to the domestic scene, a domestic art associated with the “female”. Farming is manual labor and involves lots of dirt so it must be a “man’s” job (though it hasn’t always been this way and things are now changing!). The gender assumptions people make separate these two areas, missing out on what could be a holistic mindset that encompasses both, free from the gender binary. It seems silly that artistic creation is seen so separate from the manual labor of farming. What is farming without creation? Farming is fostering life giving plants and designing growing systems and arrangements that help them. And within the homesteaders lifestyle there are many points that beg artistic input and ingenuity. The processing of many farm products, such as a sheep’s fleece, takes artistic incentive. Just like garlic braiding, or stringing peppers to dry. Or you could look at it the other way around, that spinning is a manual labor. But I think it is too simple to try and shove occupations into our social binary we seem so addicted to. Instead we farmers/ gardeners/ spinners/ felters/ knitters/ fiber creators should recognize that through uniting farming with the creation that stems from the fiber farm products there is the great potential of queering the binary of occupation. And if you find yourself unable to free your mind from the gender binary, think again- what is more “manly” than wrestling sheep, shaving them, and  making the clothes on your back out of their hair? 

Black bean dye: the dye you can eat

As promised, an entry on dying with black beans. I apologize to my handful of readers- I’m living in the cabin in the woods in down east Maine (yes, sounds romantic as well as a great setting for a horror) with no internet connections. Here is one of my attempts to catch up as I sit in the grocery store, in the big city of Ellsworth, stealing internet from the cafe next door. To give you a sense, here is a pic of our trusty wood stove!

So black beans. I had a lot of fun with these dye baths, especially since I got to eat the beans that were soaking in the form of a delicious chili. 

First, reluctantly, I mordanted my wool. This is an important step I often try to deny, but important nonetheless. Yes you should do it. The Craft of the Dyer: Colour from Plants and Lichens of the Northeast by Karen Leigh Casselman describes mordants:

“There is more confusion regarding the use of mordants than with any other aspect of plant dyeing. Mordants are simply metallic or mineral salts which, when added to the dyebath, enhance, intensify, or change the colour of the dyebath and mkae the resulting shade more fast to light and washing.” 

So it is a good thing. I mordanted my wool in 5 gallons of water which I boiled for 30 mins with about 1 gram of cream of tarter (found in most kitchens) and 1 gram of alum (an ingredient in baking sodas and other house hold items). Here are more detailed directions:

The wool in the mordant pot:

Meanwhile, I soaked a big bowl of black beans with water (enough to cover the future wool) for two days, stirring whenever I walked by it in the kitchen. By the second day the water was a deep purple. 

Then, in a dying pot strictly used for dying experiments (not cooking), I added the mordanted wool, still wet, and the black bean soaking water. No heat necessary. I let this sit for another 2 days and then rinsed the wool in cold water (don’t use hot, it will cause unintended felting) until the water ran clear. I dryed it in the greenhouse on a few sunny winter days. Though the tips of the wool were the bluest (some even bright shades of tourquoise!) once carded the overall effect was beautiful shades of light blue.

I had did two dye baths, one whose batch of wool had been previously dyed with an unsatisfactory tan. Here is the difference in color. The one on the left is the over dyed wool, a blue/ green/ gray and on the right is the light blue wool. Both dyed with the black bean.

TaDa!  

If you are interested in trying out different plant dyes, it is a deep rabbit hole of exciting experiments. Right now I am collecting a bunch of onion skins... a foolproof dye bath. Check out this book for a great overview of natural plant dying as well as thorough lists and instructions for many of the plants around you: