Summers are for spinning

'Tis the Season. The season for spinning. It is so much easier (and more pleasurable) to process fibres during the sunny months. In the evening, when the weather cools, I often take my spinning or fleece preparation outside to the deck. 

Part of that Cheviot fleece which I oiled last week got dyed a bright pinky-purple. Then I blended it with some grey Lincoln Longwool (gift from Margo! Thanks, again) with a few bits of Corriedale. and then spun a tight 2 ply. It's destined for socks, due to the sturdy blend and the tight plying. I think I will spin a tiny amount of 100% Lincoln to use for the toes and heels of the socks. It'll wear like cast iron. 

This is the batt which I currently have on the wheel. It's a sw merino batt. I dislike spinning sw merino, because the fibres don't stick together very nicely, but the colours won out on this one. I'm sure you will agree.

Tis also the season for flowers. Peonies from the back garden which Lu brought inside this evening.

At the vendors sale of the Ontario Handspinning Seminar, I purchased 16 oz of a fleece from Fortune Hill Farm. Cedar, the sheep from whom this fleece hails, is 50% Romney, 50% BFL. So it's silky, shiny, bouncy, and long, and tightly crimped all at the same time. There is a full range of colour; grey, moorit, and black. I really love multi colour fleeces. Unlike the Shetland I worked with last week, I'm going to blend all the colours together before spinning. The fleece was already washed when I bought it, so I can get right into carding. It also has very little VM, and has been well skirted. I'm very impressed with quality. I will look to Fortune Hill Farm in the future for other fibre needs. 

Like the Shetland fleece, this Romney-BFL fleece gives many colours as well as many types of crimp. The crimp is still very clear after carding. And energy in the fleece will produce energy in the yarn. I'm excited to see how it looks on the wheel.