Over the 4th of July, things were kind of slow in the business department, so we decided to have a little fiber fun.  Try and catch up on a few fleeces and some weaving.  I was given two fleeces from a family that has two pet sheep a few weeks ago and they really  needed to be skirted of the stinky, yucky bits and then evaluated for further processing.  The one above was mostly black, with some brown and a little white.  Nice and soft, I think it will spin up in something very nice.  However, it didn’t have a lot of crimp to the length, so I’m not sure how well it will spin.  Might have to mix it with a bit of Shetland or something.   Will give it a try and see!  Hopefully, I am mistaken! 

The second fleece was mostly white and a light cream.  Again, super soft, but not a lot of crimp.  The lady said they were purebred Icelandic Shetlands.  Which is kind of not a real thing.  I mean, there are Icelandics, and then there are Shetlands.  Related but not the same.  This fleece looks nothing like our Shetlands.  And it really doesn’t look like Icelandic to me either.  Icelandic usually has a double coat, soft undergrowth and longer guard hairs.   This had no guard hairs.   I saw the two sheep and they are small, rather like Shetlands.  I don’t know.  Right now I am calling these fleeces Shetlandic.  Rare Shetlandic. 

Our dear friend Miss Mary has loaned us her drum carder for awhile and we are doing our best to use it on all our fleeces!  We still have about eight left to go.  It takes a good while to get a whole fleece carded.  I really hope that this holiday season we do well enough to afford our own.   They are about $350 and just a hard item to fit into our budget.  Still, someday!

We also tried to get a few more fleeces washed…  it takes a long time as well!  This is Rafeka’s fleece, our male Angora goat.   My goodness, he is such a boy and just loves to roll in the dirt and all!  His fleece required six washings!   Hard to believe.  The picture below was the third wash and rinse!   Finally got it all washed after two days!  It was a big fleece as well, over seven pounds.  Worth the effort for sure but still, remarkable.  His sister’s was not as bad at all! 

Maggie enjoys carding for me.  I get a little bored with it after a few hours.  She doesn’t mind.  She pops in a video to watch on her ipod and away she cards!   I think when we get our own, I’d like her to build a little table for it, just the perfect height and such.  We used our table but it’s a little high to sit at and too low to stand!   Ergonomics are very important in something that you do for hours and hours!

Jessy worked over the weekend on this gorgeous scarf!  I am not surprised that it sold right away.  We hardly had it up on the shop for more than an hour when it was bought by a friend of ours!  I know Kelly will love it!  It’s so pretty.   The colors remind me of Mardi Gras!  Don’t they?

Jessy goofing around with the finished scarf.  It was over a hundred inches long!  I wish you could have seen how pretty it was up close, and how soft.   It’s the first long strip scarf we have ever made!  And all out of yarns…  soft to the touch and nice to drape with.  It really is stunning.

I’m sure she is going to make some more!   We just need to go picking out pretty yarns to weave more with.  We used up our small stash of pretty yarns on this one.

The nice thing is that with weaving, you can use up single skeins of lovely novelty yarns.  This scarf used up about 8 different types of yarn that we had in our stash.  Some were complete skeins, but others were partial balls left after other projects.  A few we even got at a garage sale.  I love being able to take an assortment of materials and make something so lovely.   It really is cool.

Well, that was our holiday.  How exciting, eh?  Actually, it was nice to be able to just relax and enjoy some crafting time.  We took some time on the 4th to drive around later in the evening and watch the various community firework shows.  Being in such a flat place, you can see a bunch while enjoying an ice cream in your car!  No traffic and crowds to fight!  And I will admit, we had a few nice afternoon naps and time to just relax.  It was nice.  Hope you all had a lovely weekend as well!