In honor of the rainy weather....

I bring you three subdued merino sock yarns, available at A Piece of Vermont. My favorite, Raspberry Tea:

Pocketful of Pebbles:

And Riverbed:

I have also just dyed up some distinctly autumnal shades, which should be available early next week.

In Vermont-specific fiber news, (a) my Vermont wool/mohair 3-ply sock yarn is finally in full production at the fiber mill and I honestly, truly, actually believe it will be here by next week some time; and (b) yesterday I boxed up a Vermont Romney/Corriedale fleece and a Vermont alpaca fleece and sent them out together to be carded into roving, which I will then sell, dyed and natural. Good news: turnaround times on roving is only 8 weeks!

Dealing with the sheep fleece, however, gave me pause. It was unskirted, and I have never skirted a fleece under supervision. (Read: No clue what I am doing.) After pulling off the obviously poopy or overly-VM sections, I was left with a lot of beautiful fleece with yucky tips.

Debbie McDermott, the very patient and informative owner/operator of Stonehedge Fiber Mill (where this is being processed) told me that gummy tips are mostly dirt and lanolin and do wash out. (I recently read in an antique sheep raising book that the "crust" the dirt and lanolin create actually protects the fleece.) But some of this looked suspect, and since you have to pay for washing services based on incoming weights, I really didn't want to send her a bunch of crappy fleece.

So I kept the questionable stuff.

I decided to scour a few ounces myself and see what happened. This happened:

What happened is the main fleece became lovely and white, but unless I manually pulled apart each tip, the dirt/lanolin did not wash out well. For instance, look at the dirty (washed) tip in this picture:

Yuck. I went back and separated and fluffed it by hand. Result:

The yucky stuff breaks apart into dirt and falls away. This is wet fleece, so I imagine when it is dry I can flick it with my handy little dog comb and the dirt and VM will end up in my lap, rather than in the wool. But I will still want to wash the fleece again before spinning, won't I?

Hmm. What to do.... Here I have a few ounces of fleece wanting to be handspun. I also have a big bag of alpaca fleece waiting to be commercially spun. There is also the Twisted Knitters Dye-Spin-Knitalong starting in a couple of days. Perhaps this wool could be blended with a bit of the alpaca and then dyed and spun into something mittenish? The dye-spin-knitalong has a very long timeline, so this could work. I will post pictures of the Romney/Corriedale once I have flicked the locks.

I have never tried blending fibers so it might be a bit of a problem. I guess I'm going to hand-card them together. Is that what you do? It's so fun being totally ignorant, and yet fearlessly enthusiastic.

Help me.

Comments

[Carrie]

YAY! I have no idea how to help you on the fleece issue. Sounds kinda fun, though. The new yarns are so pretty!

[Carol]

I love your yarn! Sorry, but I couldn't possibly help you with roving/spinning, but I did want to thank you the best lunchtime reading ever! Luckily, I'm not the squeamish type.

[Amanda]

I'm totally convinced that fearless enthusiasm is what makes the world go 'round! :)

[CindyCindy]

On the blending thing? I hand card, but then again, I hand card everything because I have no drum carder. It's not that hard, but it is very very hard to be consistent. If you're persnickety you might some advice from an expert, but if you're like me, I love the experimentation. Since I'm a novice as well, I didn't even skirt my fleece. Duh. BTW, Sophie looks very comfy in her sweater. And, how's the mini-knitter doing?

[Norma]

Mmmm, I love your subtle colorways. And am I the only one for whom the term "scour" as regards fleece just seems all wrong? I think of scouring as rubbing/scrubbing the hell out of something, causing torn fingernails and cuts and abrasions and blisters on my hands in the process, which is most decidedly NOT what one does to fleece. I want a talk with that Webster dictionary guy......

[Dolly]

Each time I bring home a raw fleece, and before washing, I skirt, sort, then sit patiently and pull apart every lock to open it and pick out the VM. This takes alot of time but I love handling the wool. Picking first makes a big difference on how clean the fleece gets.

[Nessa Z.]

Hmm - if it's only a few ounces of the fleece, why not flick the crusty ends BEFORE you wash it? Saves washing it twice. Happy spinning!

[lynne s of Oz]

I commit sacrilege if the ends are truly feral. I snip them off!
A lot of the dirt comes out when you flick/card/comb the fleece and unless you specifically want as white a yarn as possible, it usually turns out quite nicely.
I'd guess that mills would be used to mucky tips - part and parcel of most fleeces unless the sheep is coated.

[chris]

I love the Raspberry Tea colorway - went to your shop to order it and didn't see it - did I miss out on it? Oh, please let me know!!

[Laura]

It's that fearless enthusiasm that's been so exciting for me lately. Specifically regarding my spinning progress and experimentation. The supplies aren't terribly expensive so I haven't this "what have I got to lose?" kind of attitude. It's awesomely fun!

And the colorways you showed today - YUM! I love the raspberry tea! I just received a gift of handpainted yarn in an alpaca/wool blend that's very similar to those colors and they called it "Pussy Willow". Just beautiful!

[Mary]

Beautiful yarns up there. Wish I could help with advice re: the yukky fleece, but I'm clueless when it comes to that kind of thing. I'll be interested to see what you end up doing.

Thanks so much for your kind words regarding my mom. And I'm very sorry for your loss, as well.

[JessaLu]

I'm loving the Raspberry Tea colorway ;o)

Thankfully Steve was pretty clean to begin with and already skirted - I think if you flick the ends prior to washing it might help get most of the yuck out...maybe?

[Kelly]

Beautiful colorways!

[Lisa]

After washing and drying, most of that dirt should flick out, as the lanolin is gone and the dirt will have nothing sticky to hold it in the wool while you flick. If it really bother's you (as it would me) go ahead and rewash the parts that are still dirty. It's all up to you.

I've washed a grey romney fleece both flicked and non-flicked. There was a little difference in how clean the flicked was from the non-flicked, but in my opinion, not enough to spend the 3 hours it took to flick half a fleece (that was after sorting and alligning all the locks, uff-da). I would flick a really dirty white fleece and plan to do at least 3 washings and 3 rinsings. That's my method, maybe it will help you. Good luck!