BYC Spinning Fiber

[BonneTerreChick]

Just my two cents.....I think the type of soil, amount of soil and how long the soil may have been with the fleece can affect how much effort it takes to get it clean. When I lived on the other side of the Cascades, here in Oregon, the soil was sandy and, therefore, so was the mud. Here on the west side of the mountains our soil seems to have clay in it and so its "stickier". Over on the east side it averages about 10-20 inches of rain a year. Over here it averages 60-70+ inches annually and rains for about 7-9+ months of the year. I shear my sheep once a year. My sheep dont mind the rain and so will go out and graze in it. LOL, imagine how much water that could be hitting your back over the rainy season....its almost like the mud is washed IN the fleece by the time its time to shear. My goats are much more prissy, if its raining they only go out if they absolutely must(like mom is outside with treats or its started raining and they are working their way back to the barn) so they dont end up as weather beaten. The soil/mud on this side of the mountains is MUCH more difficult to get out of the fleeces. It can be done, most of the time, but it can take a lot of effort. I use my top-load washing machine, like I mentioned a few pages back, and I skirt some of my fleeces real heavily because of VM, mud or a combination of both. If I have a dirty fleece I really want to have the most I can get from, I usually end up opening a lot/all of the locks by hand or with a flicker/dog brush. I am fortunate in a way, since the animals live here, I will have a fleece again in six months for my goats and 12 for my sheep. So unless it is a really impressive fleece, has some special significance(like I sold or lost the animal), or I need a lot of fiber for a specific project, the skirting heavily on the really dirty ones is an ok thing. If I was buying the fleece and it was the only one that I had, it would be different and a lot more work intensive.

Oh, and the type of fleece seems to make a difference, the less crimp the easier and the medium lengthed fleeces seem easier than the short or long stapled ones, IMO.

 

[itsy]

Quote:
I couldn't agree with you more, there! I have been processing a bit of Navajo Churro (which has 0 crimp). It's SO easy to process because everything just comes right out of it.

The last batch of fleeces that were offered to me for free (Dorsets and Shetlands) were SO heavily laden with mud and debris, that I passed on all of them. It wasn't even worth me digging through to get to the good bits.

 

[peepacheep]

Thank-you for the input! Tried washing another two bundles of the crimpy muddy white Romney. The mud and gunk washed out ok in a very small bundle but the outer inch is still heavily stained. The thicker bundle still has fine bits of dirt/clay as well as the stain. BonneTerreChick, I am guessing this might be a west side fleece. Nothing remotely sandy and it looks like the mud was driven deep into the fleece. Beautiful long locks but not sure what to do about the staining. Thinking about fermenting a small batch. Hopefully a bucket of smelly sheep fleece will not bring a curious bear to investigate.

On a much lighter and fluffier note I started spinning some CVM I bought at Black Sheep, it is so soft. Can't wait to see what it does when plied.

 

[BonneTerreChick]

Peepacheep~ I am not sure what to do about the staining. I think it depends on how you prepare your fiber for spinning what "look" you will end up with. If you use a drum carder to make batts from the fiber, I think the color will just blend in and make the yarn darker over all. If you keep the lock formation and just spin from a handful of fiber you may end up with a more varigated or stripey look. If you plan to hand dye either the fiber or the yarn, the staining may add some overdyed effect to the finished product that may add a depth to the color. The main thing I think I would worry about is the structural integrity of the fiber. If the fiber is weaker where it is stained it will affect the spinning and affect the yarns strength. There have been a few fleeces(ones that I REALLY wanted to spin) that I was willing to cut off the affected ends(when the lock was long enough that the fiber would still be long enough to spin). It was very time consuming! There have also been some lesser desired fleeces that I have just used for felting or thrown out because it wasnt going to be worth the time to cut off the tips.

LOL, if the fleece didnt pretty much come clean in the second wash it definitely is from the west side or somewhere else with similar "dirt".

I got some lovely rovings at BSG also, I have most of them spun up already. I still have some lovely jade roving that is merino, alpaca, kid mohair, and bamboo to spin. I have already spun up about half of it, but was impatient to get to some of my other buys so the second half is still left to spin(<grin> 9.25 oz is too much for me to spin at once, when there are other new goodies waiting impatiently to have their turn). I also have some llama/milk fiber roving that a friend gave me when I saw her at BYC. It is to die for soft!! I just take it out and touch it, not sure if it will spin easily or be very slippery and in no hurry to find out, lol, when it feels soooo good!

I rationalize buy things at Fiber Market Day(in Central Oregon), OFFF and BSG(local fiber shows), by buying things that are blends of fiber I dont have or that arent readily available in stores or online. I really just need to get busy and get my "home grown" fibers skirted, cleaned and some of them milled then I could have all kinds of blends! LOL, but all that skirting, cleaning and carding takes away from the spinning! So I am sort of caught in a catch-22...

 

[peepacheep]

The drum carder sounds like a good idea for blending in the stained tips, if as you said the tips are strong enough. Dying would certainly turn the stain into an accent. That maybe the best solution for this Romney.

I composted one of the Jacob fleeces, The more I picked through the more brittle areas I found, just not worth the work for poor quality fiber.

I hear you about cutting into spinning time! My big motivator is sunny weather to dry washed fiber, outdoors. While there is the chicken hazard, the chickens are less of mess threat than what 3 Labs and 3 cats can do to washed fleece indoors. Have a brown Lincoln fleece I would like to try next and a mystery fleece, long, gray, and wavy. There is a hand written note in the bag about what wool combs to use but no other info.

Llama/milk fiber sounds lovely. I rationalized buying fiber that I love to knit but have not tried spinning. At BSG I think I may have bought enough angora rabbit blended roving and batts for a whole bunny. And CVM, it is teaching the art of slowing down.

 

[BonneTerreChick]

LOL, yes, CVM would teach one a thing or two about slowing down. My problem is I am already pretty slow! I taught myself to spin and use a short draw method, so am pretty slow as compared to my friends who use a long draw. But even I had to slow down more when I was spinning a merino, silk and angora blend. I got frustrated at one point, enough to think about tossing the whole thing out. Good thing it was for a friend and I knew how much she paid for it, otherwise it might never have been seen again. But I made it through...whew!

Wish I could long draw like my friends do! It would make some of my medium and long wools spin up a lot faster. I have heard and read different places that the short draw produces a more worsted yarn and the long draw is a more wooly yarn, and that seems to mean that a worsted(as in spinning, not yarn weight) is stronger and pills less, so I rationalize being slow by going along with this<grin>. I guess my quest for long drawing would be helped a lot if I would choose to spin more of my medium/long wools and no so many short fine ones! My friend keeps telling me I just need to let go....and spin, lol, she says I dont need to control it so much and that will make long draw easier. Let go? dont know about that.

 

[Bleenie]

Does anyone here have a good bunch of leftover roving they don't really need or want? I'd like to make a couple dryer balls for my sister to use with my niece's clothes, she has sensitive skin so she can't use dryer sheets with her clothes and i think she'd love the dryer balls. Please let me know if you have some, color doesn't really matter but if you have pinks/purples that'd be great! Thanks!

 

[itsy]

Bleenie, I have found that if you make your own laundry detergent, there is no need for dryer balls or sheets or any sort of fabric softener. I have it up on my blog here:

This is for powder laundry detergent:

http://www.etsybtsy.com/?p=31

and this is for liquid laundry detergent:

http://www.etsybtsy.com/?p=20

It is SO much cheaper than buying it in the store and it works just the same....also on HE washers and is septic safe. I started making it with Fels Naptha soap, though, instead of the Ivory because I feel like it works a little better.

 

[peepacheep]

I have been trying to figure out if I long draw or short draw and I might have this all muddled up. As best as I can tell it depends on the calamity going on between my fingers moment by moment. For the past couple of months I have been working with long fiber with tons of VM and second cuts. Constantly picking out debris as I go, rare occasions of being able to let the twist run very far. I am certainly no expert here, it is my understanding with worsted spun the twist is done between the compressed fingers of the spinning hand and the wheel, and as you said, making a smoother, stronger yarn. With woolen spun the twist is in the web of the draft, between both hands, less compressed, trapping more air, a nice technique for short fine fiber. Does this sound right?

The CVM was beautifully carded, no VM. My goal was to barely put twist into the single, that's what slowed me down, then over twist the 2 ply. It was a pure act of faith finishing the first skein of Romney woolen spun. Agitating handspun yarn in hot soapy water then plunging into cool water, 4 times no less, sounded like a recipe for a felted tangle. The skeins of woolen spun Romney, Corridale and CVM unkinked, puffed and bloomed. They were transformed into something altogether different than what came off the bobbin.

itsy, I can attest to the power of Fels Napha. 25 years ago my old Lab decided a dead skunk that had been floating in a pond for a month was ripe and ready for retrieving. What she did not eat she rolled in.

2-3 suds-ings later either she smelled better or I had lost my sense of smell. Labradors can be so gross and such great dogs all at the same time.

 

[peepacheep]

Another question, has anyone cleaned a Lincoln fleece? When I snap the fiber between my fingers the fiber is breaking, no popping sound. Is this a sign the fiber is too brittle? There are no visible locks like the Romney or Jacob but wads of fiber, the tips or cut ends are not very obvious..... to clean or not to clean, that is the question.