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My fiber laundromat is in full swing.
Nikko is a lovely butterscotch sort of color.
Valley Girl is a wonderful cinnamon color. (This photo is NOT the correct color! She's more reddish.)
Calamity Jane is Black-Hole Black.
I like to sew the locks into a length of netting, so that everything stays in locks and stays nice and neat.
I personally vacuumed each and every alpaca on that ranch - I personally emptied the vacuum cleaner, numerous times throughout the day - so I know that our vacuuming job was actually removing dust and debris -
I fill the basin with warm water and a generous squirt of hair-shampoo. I let it soak a while, then lift the fiber out, and I just pour the water out into the yard - the grass loves it. I keep refilling the basin with warm water and letting the fiber soak until the water runs clear. In the last basin-full of warm water, I put in a generous squirt of hair-conditioner and let the fiber soak in it for a little bit, then I let it drain out. I don't rinse this conditioner out - it really helps control the static electricity that my desert climate can cause.
My high tech water heater - I let one basin-full soak until another hose-worth of water heated up. It worked really well. Let me tell you - on a sunny day in Colorado - this hose heats up pretty fast and amazingly HOT.
Why do these spoiled brat animals
Pure potential.
Dreaming of becoming a neck warmer? A scarf? A lace shawl?
I spun a little bit of each one - fine and thick - here's Nikko's swatch.
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I also washed a bit of Coopworth, which I purchased from Sandy in California. This Coopworth fleece is truly beautiful. It's from a young sheep named Sierra Silver. I hope to spin and knit the sweater named Moonlight by Kim Hargreaves - the pattern appeared in Rowan 34. So, my sweater already has a name - Sierra Silver Moonlight. Ahhh... I can hardly wait!
I laid out the locks -
Pinned them into place -
Washed and dried and take a look at how lovely.
I spun up a bit and got gauge (as noted on the pattern) on my first try, waahoo! Here is a test swatch - this wool fairly sparkles - it almost looks metallic -
I'm thinking of cutting off the yellowed tips to make the overall color more of a cool grey - the tips warm the color, and I'm not sure if I like it or not. Must experiment. (I've never cut tips off of locks before, and truth be told, I'm sort of chicken.)
A note on the pin job -
Now, I washed enough fiber to get started spinning. I made a bunch of spindles, and improved my junky-garage-wheel. (I also bought a mountain of dyed rovings for other projects.) There's nothing stopping me - Let The Spinning Begin!
I can hardly wait!
Cheers!
Rosemary
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