What?

 

Familiar?

Tom & Gracie

A few months ago, a fleece from a sheep named Gracie came to live with us. Gracie is a CVM/Romney, and she is so dark brown and soft…ooh, I really can’t describe. When Tom saw the fleece sample, his mouth opened and the words, “that’s my sweater,” came out. So. Gracie came home.

Designing a sweater for a guy is not really simple. Not if the guy wants to actually wear the sweater. Not if you want the guy to actually love the sweater you design for him. So, it took some doing. I’ve been through all the books. We talked about necks and ribbings, shoulders and textures. Ad infinitum. A woman in one of my Ravelry groups sent me an old Knitter’s magazine with an Elizabeth Zimmerman sweater. Good thought. But, no. However, there were elements of the “right” sweater there, and in another sweater in that old magazine.

The Swatch, the Needles, the Sweater Pattern, and the Cartoon

I had already spun a 20 yd sample of 12wpi 2-ply, thinking that would be about the right weight and spring for a sweater. And as soon as I had a chart for the allover design, I knitted a swatch. It’s fairly hard to see here, but…

The Successful Swatch

So, with 4 1/2 lbs of Gracie in the box, I set about deciding how best to wash her. I usually do a cold scour, but there has been so much talk about the Fermented Suint Method (FSM), that I decided to try that. In FSM, a fleece is soaked in room temperature water for a week. Just left to stew in its own juices. The water gets brown, opaque, practically flocculates, a slick of weird stuff forms on the top, oh…and it stinks. Does that make you want to try it? After that week, the fleece gets rinsed…I shot it with a hose…until the water runs clear. Guess what? The fleece comes out soft, locks intact, just swell! And it doesn’t stink. The best part is, or the most fun part, or the most really hard to get over part…is that that nasty dirty looking water is then reused, for more fleece. Yes. Just drop another fleece in…and in two days…that fleece is clean. Potassium salts from the suint do the trick. VM is loosened up, barnyard gunk drops out, pasty ends open up. It’s the closest thing to magic you will ever see in fleece washing land. The best part is…there is no soap, no stress about felting…no worries.

Gracie in the Tub – FSM Style

After the successful washing of Gracie, I started the process of carding. Carding and pulling roving.

Gracie Roving

Here’s a bit of the roving I’ve been pulling. We played a dance in Tampa the other night, and I carded and pulled for a couple of hours during the drive between Gainesville and the Rhapsody Ballroom. When we got to the dance, I showed a woman my little project. She rubbed her cheek against it, and proclaimed, “feels like cashmere.” Enough said.

A Summer Wool, Anyone?

Gulf Coast Sock Yarn Blend

Here’s a 4 oz knob of a blend of GC, bamboo, and, I think, silk. This was a gift from a gal who is trying very hard to move to this area. She was attempting to come up with a sock yarn for Florida using her wool. I am finding it easier to spin than knit. And, boy, do I need to get knitting. It has been hotter than the hinges of hell…and I’ve been finishing a big oak dais outside, wearing a rubber mask, and boy oh boy…am I a miserable beech when I’m sweating to death. So…I haven’t started the knitting projects.

I’m Liking this Yarn

Yessirram

Yessirree, yessirram, this yarn’s as good as fresh baked ham. Here we have more Reggie yarn…I really like those coarse hairs whiskering around the yarn. Is it awful? Am I a total geek? Or is this a really nice thread? I would wear it. Oh my yes. Yessirram.

Back to Reggie

Reggie, Combed

I just can’t get my stuff in one sock. I’ll tell ya. I want to wash fleece, but I am bouncing around like crazy. Back from Cocoa (where we played a dance) at 3:30 in the morning. To bed by 4:30. AM. Then it was take care of critters and gardens. Now, it’s pack the instruments in the truck and zip off to Gainesville to play another dance. This is all I could get done. Clean fiber…just needed combing. I started a yarn the other day. May as well add to it, yes?

Month Ends with Beginner’s Mind

Beginner’s Mind: Border Leicester, CVM/Romney, Gulf Coast Native 40 yd about an Ounce

To end the month with a spin is good. To end, as one might begin, even better.

This yarn is spun with ends of runs…blobs with alfalfa, neps galore, uncombed locks. Just a pile of scruffy stuff that I loaded onto the handcards, cleaned, carded, and spun. I plied the dark CVM/Romney/GCNI with a fat Border Leicester single. Soo soft and delicious! Lumpy, bumpy, irregular, thick, thin, and a yarn any beginner would be horrified to spin.

This ends month #1 of Yarn Every Day on Ravelry. What a wild group! If you are a Raveler…come on by…we’ll be giving it a go next month, too!

3-ply on a Sad Day

This is the yarn I spun today. It’s from Holly, one of our dear Gulf Coast girls.

We’re very sad this evening. Wingie, our heroic mother hen, died today. She leaves 4 chicks who will be 5 weeks old this week. Oh, what a heartbreaker.

Back to the Garden

Twenty four hours is a long while to be gone from a place like this: a labor intensive-dependent place, with living, breathing, eating dependents. We got back late yesterday afternoon, ate, relaxed, and slept. This morning, the celestial choir awakened us. All 9 roosters were going off, simultaneously, in pairs, in quartets, in…well, you get the idea. They were just so needy. Artie, the muse, on the other hand…

Content-o-Cat

She is laying on, you guessed it, Sally’s fleece, all rolled up in an old sheet. I haven’t yet had time to skirt, weigh, etc, so there it sits. And, as you can see, she knows a good thing when she feels it. The gal who has to sleep with mommy, and has, for 15 years…well, there’s something better.

The garden needed attention. I planted borage seedlings, cotton seedlings, a couple rows of Jacob’s Cattle beans, and lo, oh, yeah, and behold…the Contenders are blooming. Also, we have 3 little ears of corn on corn stalk #1. Also, we pulled a dozen or so plump crisp red potatoes out from under. Also…oh pah, I won’t go on. I did have a lot to do out there, though. Fertilizing the Seminole squash and the Cocozelle…good ol rotted chicken poo hay. Watering the onions and the Brandywines. Half the dang day.

Then there was food to make. Blueberry muffins, daily bread, sausage & peppers…another good chunk o time. And, needless to say, I had to drive to the feed store.

So…the spinning didn’t get going until about an hour ago…and what should I spin? Well, Gracie came today. Gracie is a CVM Romney cross. The darkest dark brown. And as soft and silky as a bevis.

An Ounce of Gracie

This is what I did. This soft, slidey stuff takes a little bit of gettin’ used to…so, I took that ounce that I washed this afternoon, and spun ‘er up using a variety of tensions and ratios and speeds. Light, medium, and slow. There you go.

A Dash of Apricot & a Map

The apricot-coreopsis fluff from yesterday’s post (below) is being transformed into yarn. But, there are so many last minute things to do before tomorrow’s big reveal, that I just can’t fit one more centimeter of yarn into my day.

Tomorrow Holly & Sally get loaded into the truck (that ought to be a worthy sight) and driven back to Morningside, where they were born. There, they are destined to meet a shearer called Joel, who came all the way from Alabama to shear a few Gulf Coast Natives.

Before the haircuts, I will be dressed up like your maiden great-grand-aunt who lived in the sticks in 1880. I’ll be setting with Susan the soapmaker, showing off these plant dyed yarns of mine. I can’t bring the Fricke, but I have many a handspindle to accompany me. I promise to sneak a certified non-authentic camera in, to take a couple pictures.

After the haircuts, Tom & I will drop the naked girls off back home, feed the chickens, and depart for Barberville, where we are scheduled to play the last dance at 10:00. Then…who knows. We will probably drive home so as to be here to feed the critters first thing. Then, it’s back to Barberville for more pickin’ and fiddlin’ – a midday gig and an early afternoon dance.

Hence the book of maps.

Ah, to be Single & Orange

172 yd/1 1/2 oz Gulf Coast Native Singles – Coreopsis

The dyed locks from last summer ran out, but gave up a nice soft singles yarn. I’d like to ply it, and the choice I have is between waiting for coreopsis to bloom and dyeing more, or plying with a different color. This time, I’m opting to wait for flowers. I’m hankering for solid colors.

Today, our fiddle band played for the opening day of Morningside’s Farm & Forest Festival. Many many elementary school kids were let out of jail and brought to the farm to enjoy a day of earthiness. They made rope, watched a blacksmith, a tanner, and a banjo maker, they ate kettle corn and roasted corn, they saw a “cracker” barnyard and an heirloom garden, they touched tanned pelts, and they sat on benches and sang along with the Flying Turtles String Band. We return on Saturday with our sheep and my baskets of plant dyed yarns. Our gals, Holly and Sally, will get their very first shearing. We are very excited! Holly and Sally…well…not too much.