Fiber

Let There be Yarn!

/ LDSVenus / 14 Comments

Was at the farm today, my son and his spouse picked up so much yarn on Friday!! The first two pictures show all the beautiful yarn. The 2 pictures of roving (first picture is so you can see the roving clearly, the bottom picture is to show how much there is) is from a cria from last year named Laya, it is sooo soft. It was so soft the mill couldn’t spin it without it getting neps in it, so she processed it as roving and my son gave it to me, oh my all this soft fiber to spin!!! Her color is light enough that I can dye some of it if I want :).

It was Alpaca Farm Days today at my son’s and his spouse’s farm but I didn’t get to take any pictures, I was busy showing spinning for all the people who came to see the alpacas. The fiber I was spinning is some old stash cria that looks a lot like Laya’s fiber and just as soft :). It was a good day :).

Drum Carding CVM Fiber

/ LDSVenus / 5 Comments

This is an older fiber I purchased maybe about maybe 10 years ago (or maybe it was 3 years ago, lol, I can’t remember)? I made myself promise that before I spun a newer purchased fiber I would spin one of my deep stash, lol I think this one qualifies. I am not finished spinning the camel/silk but that CVM has been on my drum carder for quite a while, so it was calling to me to finish what I had started. The batt, in the front of the picture, is a 59 grams batt that I had started, it’s a little over 2 ozs. So I have the other 1/2 of this fiber to card (in the bag behind the batt.) I think if you click on the picture it will enlarge and you might be able to read what is on the bag, but incase you can’t, it is 4.5 ozs, of CVM (an endangered sheep called California Variegated Mutant – lol the color is mutated not the sheep :P). The natural color is the grey and some of it was dyed, the colors are grey and (if I’m reading it right sezse?) light turquoise. She named the color way Smoke on the Water. Anyway I think it will spin up to be a beautiful yarn. I better get busy, spinning that camel/silk! I’m still knitting on the blue blanket from a previous post, I’ll put a picture in next time so you can see my progress. Plus, I still need to also be working on my Hats for Warmth project for my local homeless shelter. So much to do so little time, because I also wanted to make those knitted color work Christmas Tree decorations I planed as gifts this year. Where does all the time go??? It rained today, but maybe tomorrow I will spin out on my balcony because the weather is cooler :).

I am enjoying the cool down, which might last a couple of weeks, according to the weatherman, but it will heat back up by mid September, sigh. I know there is still a lot of heat out west and hope you will cool off sooner than later. Stay safe.

Camel/Red Eri Silk Update and New Fiber Purchase

/ LDSVenus / 8 Comments

This is so soft to spin, the silk is a long staple but the camel is very short so I imagine the camel might make a slight halo on the finished yarn. Finished the 1st bobbin and started the 2nd bobbin, but haven’t been able to spin on it very much, will spin on it tomorrow, I’m excited to see how it looks when it’s finished and I’m hoping it will be a sport weight. The colors are never correct on my picture on the reds, this is actually looks like a very light orange on my screen, but it’s a bit brighter than shows on my screen. Not sure if it’s my camera or my computer screen.

Opps I might have bought another fiber to spin, it’s called Smooth Bark (the color looks true) from Camaj Fiber Arts, but to be honest I bought it last month and just didn’t get to put it in on my blog. I’m trying to stick with no more new fiber going forward until I’ve spun down some of my deep stash fiber, :D, but we can see how that is going. This is very soft also, but it should be since it’s 40% superfine merino, 20% alpaca, 20% camel and 20% mulberry silk. This shop frequently has very good sales on their fiber. I was thinking it would be the next spin, but I promised myself that if I spin a new fiber, I would also spin a deep stash fiber. So when I am finished with the camel/red Eri silk, I will go diving in my deep stash because I must love them, I bought them :P. Maybe I can find something sparkly or put sparkles on it with my drum carder :).

Hope you all are well, and surviving the hot summer we are all having, just think, Fall will be here in a month or so :).

Tour de Fleece Update and Weather

/ LDSVenus / 14 Comments

1st picture is my progress on the 50/50 camel/red Eri silk for days 16 – 18. This is spinning faster than I thought, I’m around 1/2 finished on the 1st bobbin. Because the silk is very slippery, even tho the camel being soft and short would normally require a very short draw to spin, the length and slippery nature of the silk allows me to draw it out more than a short draw but not a long draw, so it is going faster than I estimated. I love the softness of the fiber as I spin it. I’m trying to not let it be very thin, tho it would be easy to do that, because this is a gift for my previous sister in law, who I feel pretty close to. She has a medical disorder that makes it harder now with tremors to handle smaller things, so I thought if this yarn is more of a heavy fingering or light sport weight maybe she could still knit something with it, and if not, she can just feel the softness of this fiber, which is amazing. I will definitely have to get more of this fiber when Camaj Fiber Arts gets more in! Post Script, my ophthalmologist loved the skein of yarn and said she had had a very hard last couple of days and that this skein of yarn had just made her day! Giving is a blessing for the receiver and the giver :).

Well today was very nice in the upper middle 80’s and less humidity, however you can see where our weather is headed starting tomorrow though next Tuesday. The blue picture is the normal temps and the red one is with the heat index (the dew point and humidity level will be high.) I will be staying inside most of the time. Sunday I will go to church but it’s an air conditioned building and I have a/c in the car so I should be ok :P. Monday however, I’m not going anywhere. August is normally our hottest month of the year, so I shudder to think what next month will be like. Well actually I can imagine, 2 years ago when my daughter had an outdoor wedding in August, it was 118 with the heat index (that’s abnormally and obnoxiously hot for here), yeah, everyone was melting! Told her if I melted she could pick me up with a stick and a spoon and carry me inside to the reception :P. Everyone stay safe!!

Tour de Fleece 2025 update

/ LDSVenus / 6 Comments

The first 3 pictures are from day 14. The 1st picture is what was left from plying, I’d say I did pretty well not having a lot left over! The next picture is the open skein after washing before twisting it up in to a skein, I measured 252 yards, which should be a DK weight for 97 grams.  This was BFL-Corriedale cross 64%, Alpaca 27% and Sari Silk waste 9%. I have to say that the blue bled in the water when I washed it, so I rinsed it in vinegar (it helps to set the color), but nope it bled in that water too. So I rinsed it a 3rd time using a conditioner for the fiber, and there was still some bleeding in the water. I’ll have to tell her to make sure that she doesn’t hand wash it with anything else until the blue is done bleeding :(. A friend told me blue is hard to set, and so it is! I was very pleased because the skein was very balanced, no twisting to one side when held up in the open skein, just hung there straight up and down :). This skein, except for the blue not staying put in the yarn :P, was a pleasant spin and great looking yarn. You can enlarge the pictures by clicking on them.

The last 2 pictures are the camel/red eri silk, day 15. I weighed it and it was about 120 grams, so I split it into two 51grams balls, I just have one in the picture. The 2nd picture in the start of the spin. It is much thinner than the skein above, which I assumed it would be, both of those fibers spin thin. But this spin is going to take a bit longer because it takes longer to get the same amount of fiber on the bobbin because it’s thinner. I am going to guess that this will end up being a fingering weight. I will use the left over fiber, after dividing it, to card on my drum carder with other fibers for some fun batts. I will have to spin more than 30 min a day on this fiber to get anywhere close to being done by the end of the Tour de Fleece! I’ll see how far I get with 45 min or maybe bump it up to 1 hr.

The weather yesterday was ok in the lower 80’s but today is supposed to be 89, and 92 on Wed and 91 on Thursday, and up to 101 with the heat index and the muggy meter said sweltering. Sigh, and next month is our hottest month of the summer, that’s a bit scary!

Tour de Fleece Update, 2nd Bobbin 2025

/ LDSVenus / 9 Comments

This is days 7, 8, 9 (a rest day) and 10, so only 3 days of spinning. I’m closer to having the 2nd bobbin done and then plying, but not there yet :P. I think maybe 3 more days. As long as it’s done by the end of the week I’m ok because it’s going somewhere next week. Then I will start spinning that beautiful camel and red Eri silk. I generally let the singles on the bobbin rest for 24 hrs before plying when I finish to let them settle. So for that next day after I finish the bobbin I will work on some alpaca I have on my Rick Reeves wheel, I’ll insert a picture when I spin on it. That alpaca, from a cria (baby alpaca), is like butter, it’s so soft and spins much faster than the wool I’m spinning now. Smoother fibers means more glide as you spin so it goes faster.

My new Tour de Fleece tee came in, isn’t that just too cute! She always comes up with some cute stuff! Love that this one was in color, now I can be obnoxious with “I’m a spinner” when I go shopping, lol. If anyone wants one you can get it at Fiber Love Diary‘s web site. I also bought a sticker with that same design to go on a 32 oz glass I bought from her last year, that had last years sticker on it. I think I can get two more stickers on it for the next two Tour de Fleeces, lol. For my fellow spinners, she also has spinning fiber!

Our weather is up and down temp wise and storms coming in tomorrow, typical summer weather. Grateful for air conditioning!

Tour de Fleece Update

/ LDSVenus / 2 Comments

The first picture is day 5. I finished the first bobbin (sitting on the top of my wheel) and started the 2nd bobbin, the one behind it. The 2nd picture is day 6, progress on bobbin 2 :). My hope is that I will have both bobbins finished by the middle of next week and plied. I’m spinning this yarn for my eye doctor because she’s awesome ;). I have 48 grams of singles on the 1st bobbin, and I weighed out 48 grams of roving to spin for the 2nd bobbin. I weighed the bobbins a few years ago and wrote the weight of the bobbin on the side in magic marker, that way I can just weigh the bobbin filled with singles and then subtract the weight of the bobbin from the final weight and I will have the weight of the singles. Who knew math would actually come in handy and the high school math teacher was actually right! Kudos to all my math teachers :). Hopefully that will make it so I don’t have a lot of left over singles on one of the bobbins when the two bobbins are plied together. That will also depend on if I get the singles similar in diameter (thin-ness or thickness). We will see. I think this will be maybe a heavy sport weight, but less than DK (double knit weight).

It Came!! Camel and Red Eri Silk!

/ LDSVenus / 9 Comments

This is so pretty and soft, it will be fun to spin for Tour de Fleece. The red eri silk is a peace silk, it is interesting to learn about reg silk and peace silk and why it’s called peace silk (they are two different types of moths). First I will need to finish the fiber I have on my Polonaise wheel, a BFL-Corriedale cross 64%, Alpaca 27% and Sari Silk waste 9%, You can see it on my RAGBRI spin. It’s really very pretty and it’s been sitting on my wheel being neglected for too long!!!

New Cria on the Farm!!!

/ LDSVenus / 6 Comments

The mom is named Dori. She’s a first time mom and had this beautiful 18 lb cria, who was born today at 12:30pm. No name yet, but her dad is Charlie Brown, hehe, he’s the same color brown as this little one is, but she is his first daughter, he has thrown 3 males (also his color). Tim and Ev were very happy to have a little female this time. :). The cria that was born in May was a male they named Oreo because he was black with a white face. Boots (Oreo’s mom, is a black female with with white on the lower part of her front legs, thus her name lol) was brought into the herd last year and was already pregnant (we didn’t know) so we don’t know who the father was. All the males and females on that farm were registered and there’s no genetics to our herd, so having a new black male alpaca is a plus :). Only Izabella is left to have her cria but she’s not due until September, bless her heart having to carry through the hot summer.

I’ve been using my wool combs on the 2nds from Leah (a year old cria). This fleece is soooo soft, but dirty and the combs are doing a good job helping to take out the hay pieces. I’m washing after combing instead of before because her fiber is so soft that the hay just sticks to it and I figured that washing it first would just dig it deeper in. I’ll show a picture when I get enough to card into a batt. It’s a slow process but worth it to save this luxury fiber. 🙂

Spinning Purchase and Knitting Update

/ LDSVenus / 8 Comments

Ok, I hemmed and hawed and decided to buy a set of wool combs from Bam Fiber Works . I got the double row, fine wool combs with a magnetic comb cover. LOL so glad I got those covers, these things look like weapons!!! It came with a bottom that you can clamp to a table and had a nice set up to hold the comb still while you use the other comb to comb through the fiber and align it and and clean it from short cuts and left over vm. I will be washing some of the 2nd cuts from the cria (baby alpaca) fiber I got so I can try it out. Gotta be careful using those, they can do some damage!! These combs are very nice, I will enjoy learning to use them (carefully!!)

On my Look for Happiness Blanket I have the bottom border and 20 patterns done (4 rows to a pattern). This is the medium size and I need to do about 49 total patterns before doing the top border. So almost halfway done. If it doesn’t look like yarn chicken, I might add an extra pattern or so before the doing the top border. I am almost done with the 2nd skein and I have 4 more, so I might be able to make it a little longer, I’ll see where it is when I finish the 3rd skein. I’m hoping to be further along before Tour de Fleece starts on July 5th when the Tour de France begins. We spin on our spinning wheels on the days that the bicyclists ride and have two rest days when they do. We don’t normally spin all day, just however much time we have decided to spin, I’ll probably spin 20 to 30 min a day, it ends on July 27th. Will need to buy a new Tour de Fleece tee shirt this year :).

Hope everyone is well and enjoying the summer!