Sunday, July 29, 2012

Fleeced....!

                So Hamish's Gotland ewes relinquished their woolly coats the other weekend.
  They came and told me they were happy for me to use some of it
when I called around yesterday.
       (Note the black merino ewe with the white patch on it's head).

They were ready for the old coat to go as their spring growth is already showing. Hamish told me the colour of their new coats is different initially and lighter and these tips are more susceptible to felting when their fleeces get longer. Since Gotlands put so much effort into quickly growing length into their fibres, a better spinner's fleece is produced if the tips are removed later on without the staples being short.
 So thank you ladies. I went home and couldn't resist washing one of the fleeces (or 2 or 3) and carding a little bit to spin.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Studio clean up

 Finally my untidy studio was becoming too hard to work in. (forgot to take before... photos but believe me it was messy). Stuff everywhere, big spider webs hanging off the walls and piles of dead flies. So I decided to spend a day cleaning and tidying the place. I filled 2 big boxes with unwanted things for recycling and 2 bags with rubbish. So now I can move around in the space which is a fairly small area where I do most of my carding and all the dyeing.
 I washed all the walls and was surprised that nearly all the dye splatter washed off saving me from repainting.
 The units are ex high-school drawers and cupboards. My husband added the benchtop all down one wall.
He also included bench height plugs (plenty of them).
 I enjoy dyeing yarns here whilst looking out on the garden. There isn't a water supply in the building so I boil water in a tea urn and recycle the spent dyebaths by adding fresh dye colours and yarn.
 Watched over by the dye angel made by Liz King, a talented cloth artist who lives near me. She lives high up so I don't splash her too much with dye drips.
The dye bottles are refilled and I'm ready to go. So please....Milton Mill finish spinning the yarn this week.


Below are a few artist trading cards I made. These were the rejects I didn't trade but they look nice together.