Yop Update 41

Finally we had a day without rain so I could start the soak of two of my fleeces.



This is a Babydoll black fleece - only about 1/12 of the raw fleece I have, but I want to see how it spins up before proceeding to wash more of it.

This fleece was so filthy it took at least five soaks before the water ran clear. It is full of straw and grass and I picked out as much as I had patience for - the rest will be dealt with when I card it.

Here it is after drying:



While I was doing the first 24 hour soak I started to hand card a Shetland fleece I had washed a couple of years ago. I am new at hand carding and the whole right/left confusion got in my way while I was learning via Youtube but I persevered and ended up with a whole bag of rolags. (which is only 15 gms)







Below is a Friesian fleece from my son. It was much cleaner but FULL of lanolin. I want to keep the lanolin because I am going to spin this for a Cowichan sweater so I soaked it overnight in cold water and it only took one rinse the next day before the water ran clear.

Luckily the sun came out on Tuesday so it could dry in the sun. (Unlike the babydoll that took so long to wash I had to dry it inside.

Here is the raw fleece:


and here it is drying in the sun:



and here are my first three rolags off the hand carders:



Needless to say with all the wool washing my hands are soooooo soft.


As far as knitting goes I started a new colour combination for my Iona:



but, that is as far as that got because I decided on Tuesday to make this doubleknit hemp potholder for a friend's birthday (which was yesterday).



She was born in the year of the Snake, so this is the Chinese character for Snake.

When my hands were complaining form knitting with the hemp I decided to use up some stash by starting two sweaters:

An Elizabeth Zimmerman Surprise Sweater for me using these colours:



and a Dizzy sweater for a little girl (tba) by Holly Yeoh with these:



I don't have enough pink, but I have some white which I will dye to match as closely as I can.

I haven't actually cast on the Dizzy yet. Well, technically I did, and knit about an inch before realizing the first wool I chose wasn't going to work. It was alpaca and too fluffy so the stitch definition wasn't showing through.

I have cast on the Elizabeth Zimmerman sweater after swatching and futzing about with her numbers to figure out how many stitches to cast on. The answer is:

333!!

Oh my, each row seems to last f o r e v e r!

Let's see.....what else?

Nothing. That was my Yopping week. I hope to have some spinning to show you next time.