Sheep Sheep Sheep!

What a great time I had this year at what has become a traditional event weekend with my cousin, the lovely smiling woman next to the sign. For the first time since I have been going to MDS&W we spent time in the sheep barns. This made it doubly difficult to not by a fleece! Looking at the fleece on the hoof was so much fun - the variety is amazing. I am hoping participating in the Breed Study Club will give me a good foundation for buying fleece in the future. I do love the fleece that I have carded and prepped myself. So here are some of the lovely sheep I saw!
How can you resist those faces!


And look at this fleece!

It belongs to him right now:

And speaking of beautiful fleece!

I loved them all!

Aprils Breed study Finished

May has been so busy so far! I am having problems with my computer at home - not working with the card reader so that has slowed me down with posts. So, to start getting caught up - my finished Breed Study for April. I went all out for the first month and did 3 preps for each fiber. Neither of them had a lot of lanolin and were easy to scour. I clumped each breed in some bags and scoured.

I always love spinning Wensleydale but this was my first experience with scouring it and the prep. I was surprised how short is was - due to 6 months growth I was told. It was so silky and lovely to touch! I combed, flicked and drum carded. Didn't like the drum carded stuff at all but I think I left too much "bad" stuff in - have to keep in mind - the sheep will grow more! I LOVE LOVE LOVE the combed prep (top sample) - perfect for the Wensleydale. I liked the flicked a lot too - I think I need more experience with flicking. I had to include a few washed but not prepped locks - this fiber just shines!

The Romney seems like an extremely versatile fleece. I combed, flicked and hand carded this one. My favorite was the rolags from the hand carding (middle sample) - so light and airy. Again, I think I would like the flicked fiber once I get more experience with the flicker, and combing was a nice prep for it too.
I do now have a small woven sample of each breed but no pictures yet. Both are nice but the drape and shine in the Wendsleydale sample is fantastic!

My Sweater from scratch - dying & blending the wool

My finished batts:

In an effort to get a red with depth I first kettle dyed the wool (the Corriedale Fleece I got at MDS&W in 2010 - my first fleece) with three colors of Greener Shades - Ruby red (main color), Fire Red and Black. This is the fiber on the left half of the below picture. The resulting color was good but there was not as much variety as I wanted so I dyed some more fiber with the Fire Red (top right corner) and some more with Amethyst Purple (bottom right corner). The main color was all carded first then I then drum carded the three together to blend the red of my dreams! Each little nest is about 8 grams main color, 4 fire red and 2 amethyst purple.