I want to touch it more....

This is the alpaca lace I've dyed last weekend. When I was winding them into balls after drying, I can't stop admiring the softness and fineness of this yarn. Therefore, although I have started like 3 knitting projects already, I added one more.

I'm not a lace-knitting fans -- since it is rather a time consuming process and usually the lace patterns are too feminie for me. I did an extensive search on Ravelry to look for the perfect pattern -- and here's the one Cobeweb Lace Stole

And why I have to write about this? because the yarn is soooo soft!! Even after few wash and risen during the dyeing process, it's still super soft. I like the feeling how it slip on the needles, and just make me want to touch it all the time. Thus, even I'm suppose to do the analysis for my work, I can't help to take 15-minutes break (constantly! haha!) to knit few rows. It just feels so good to touch it, and now I know how Jati feels when he plays with my yarn =)

Home-made Single-row Wool Comb -- For Icelandic Wool

I've never used a wool comb (nor drum carder, hand carder etc) before. It's until I started to prepare my first fleece for spinning that I borrow my friend's St Blasie double-rows wool comb. After using it for few days, I finally realized that I was using the wrong tool for this fiber -- instead of double-row, I should use a single-row comb for Icelandic wool !! According to Susan Mongod, ' a double pitch comb (with two rows of teeth) will catch and hold the fine thel fiber as waste', epsecially for Icelandicl wool that most of the the finer/softer fiber gathered in the under coat.

I don't want to spend another hundred plus dollars on the Viking combs that I'll probably only use once or twice a year (or years). Plus, I found out that people DO make their own wool comb, according to the DIY group on Raverly. Therefore, I decided to make myself one. And it's easier than I thought.

Here's what I used:

• a box of 4cm long nails
• peices of scrape wood in the backyard (I think they are peice of the bottom wood rack for shipping)
• two 2' clamps
• 4 nails that are long enough to connect the handle to the board
• Tools incluidng an eletric drill, strong glues, sand paper, a giant clamp installed in the garage table that help to stablize the wood while drilling.

And here's what I've got =) Finished the whole things in 3 hours including cutting the woods in right sizes, sanding them down, drilling wholes and glueing in the nails. Total cost: around $10 (since I didn't really pay for the woods! just the nails and small clamps)

Useful references:

1. Ravelry DIY Tools group (viewable for Ravelry members only, go to www.ravelry.com for detials)

2. Christ Lansdown $15 Wool Comb instruction

Preparing Icelandic Wool

My journey of preparing wool from fleece for spinning begins here with a piece of

Icelandic sheep fleece that Hans brought me from his trip to North Carolina. He was away 3 weeks for a business trip and I stationed at home to look after the house. At first I want him to just bring back some roving, but he thought that it'll be nice for me to try some new things. So here I got a big piece of fleece -- and they DO smell like sheep. Sommer the German Sephred and Jati the big cat were both so excited to smell and see the fleece.

A friend I met in spinning class volunterred to show me how to do the washing process. We met up at the house and had our little experiment on washing the fleece. It was less intimidated than I though -- although the process is LONG. At first I thought that I would just send the rest of the fleec to a mill so that thye can process for me. But to think about how much it will cost ($200 to process a piece of $20 fleece), I don't think it's worth it. So somehow, I decided to wash the wholething myself. In retrospect, there are many things that I would have done differently. However, it's a good experience and I'm glad to learn some new stuff in the process.

What I've learnt:

- process of preparing fiber including washing the fleece to get rid of the dirt and lanolin (i.e. the 'oil' in the undercoat); combing the fiber to get the fine vegetable matters and 'dandruff' of the sheep away -- and this fleece I got had a lot of dandruff in it

- felting the fleece in the process of washing made the combing process really messy and annoying.. I tried to hard to separate the undercoat...

- washing with small container seems less efficient but more effective to get the dirt out

- how to use a wool comb, and evenutally, made one for myself (see here) !!

Washing them

Drying

What I would have done better next time:

- know the nature of the fleece that I'm dealing with better

- save the water to water the plants in the garden from the very begining

- separte the wool more before I put them into the water, which would made it easier to separate in the combing process!!

Useful resources to read more about preparing Iceland Sheep Fleece:

Tounge River Farm -- All About Icelandic Fleece : with info of how to wash and comb

My PVC Niddy Noddy

Working on limited funding, I rather spend my money on nice fibers than tools that I can make. I heard about making a PVC niddy noddy from my spinning teacher before, and here I am finally made one. It's about time. I research a bit on internet and find this page very useful. I used the measure here (18 inches) so that I get the 2-wrap-as-a-yard reference easily.

This thing is very easy to make. All I need to do is to cut up the PVC pie with a wood handsaw in the garage, and collect the pie with T-joint, and that is. I didn't even try to glue the joints as Hans suggested. I can twist the joint easily and it's better for storage.

Picture on the left: materials ready for making a niddy noddy -- including PVC pipe cutted up in one 18 inchese piece , four 6 inches piece and 2 T-joints; Picture on the right : that's how my niddy noddy looks like. Ta-dah~

More fibers, can't stop!!!

This month is the spinning month. I've got so many fibers from the LA spinning guild meeting. And during the past weekend, after we attended Shady and Erin's wedding up in Santa Barbara, Hans and I went up to Solvang again. This time, I got myself some very nice 64 Merino dyed in multiple color. Hans insisted I go back to the shop and asked about the meaning of '64'. As usual, the shop owners were super nice and they

 explained in detials to us how the number represent the softness of the wool. The lady even showed us some of their highest quality wool (120? 150?). In short, the higher the number, the softer the wool is. I think this is one of the reason why I love this guy so much, cos he encourages me to go two steps forward and learn new stuff. He has been very encourage in my spinning adventures. 

So here's what I've got -- 

Sandlewood

Riverstone

I want to make a shawl or something like that with Sandlewood. It's spun up

 gorgeously~~ 

Oh, my sweet boyfriend.... 

Hans came back from his long business trip to Germany. On the way home, he stopped by North Carolina to see his sister and friend. And when he came home, he brougth me this -- a big piece of Icelandic fleece~~ 

It does sleep VERY MUCH like a sheep. A lot of cleaning work is needed to be done. But I'm so excitied to see how this will turn out. It may take me years to do that, but it will happen, somehow~~