Friday, September 14, 2012

Undyed fiber report

There's been so much application of dye to fiber around here of late, that it's something of a relief to have some naturally colored fiber to play with. I've been plugging away on the Gotland (halfway to the required yardage, with another full bobbin and starting another one tonight), but I decided I needed a break, and I'm spun up the Hebridean fleece for the colorwork.
Organic Hebridean
This stuff started out looking like this:
Hebridean Organic Fleece
Hebridean Organic Fleece
There were some intact locks.
Hebridean Organic Fleece
The staple length was about 3-4 inches, and the fiber had some really nice crimp!
Hebridean Organic Fleece
I had 68 grams of raw fleece, and after washing I had about 60 gr left.
Hebridean Organic Fleece
I carded that up, after tossing out the bits that were too matted or scurfy to be worth messing with. This box full of rolags,
Hebridean Organic Fleece
Ended up as approximately 70 yds of lovely 2-ply yarn.
Organic Hebridean
This was really nice to spin - it drafted pretty well (better then the Gotland for sure!) - and the resulting yarn has a nice bounce, although it's not the softest in the world. Sadly, 70 yds is only about half of the required yardage! I do have a couple of other lots of black/brown fiber (Black Welsh Moutain, some Jacob), so the plan is to use the Hebridean for the colorwork on the arms of the sweater, and spin up probably the Black Welsh for the hem and yoke. We'll see how it goes.

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