A Short History in Spinning

A short (ahem) history in Spinning >

Feel free to blame my cousins. Yep, (coughcoughtwentyfivecoughcough)years ago they got me involved in Revolutionary War Re-enactments shortly after the 200th anniversary of the war and America's freedom. While there I had opportunities to learn from others as well.

Yup, that's me! Happily spinning away on a nice wheel. Oh those were the days. Drop Spindling just isn't the same after being on such a nice wheel. I wanted one of my own.

Never materialized though. Kept getting put off and such.

Then earlier this year - we had this lovely program nicknamed "Bush Bucks", that income tax refund on taxes paid on our tax returns? Well, I used mine and bought this:

That's a Louet S51, Single treadle wheel you're looking at. Oh, so nice! The same weekend I picked this up, a friend of mine had managed to snag two very large trash bags full of nice Montedale ram & lamb fleece! The owner usually justs tosses all of it on the compost pile in the spring, since most of her flock generates course wool, best used for carpets, but she had two Montedales in her flock and that's good spinning. Though nothing like Corrieadale or Rambouillet, or Merino, but when it's FREE, it's good spinning (at least to practice on!)

Soon I had this:

Followed shortly by this:

Then followed by this:Now mind you, I was spinning "in the grease", which means the lanolin and sorted dirt and veggie matter (VM) may still be attached, so the whole mess needs to be washed, rinsed, then dried - to determine which shade of white this fleece is gonna generate.







Now, on to the washing: Two good things about deciding to use my bathroom, instead of the art studio where messes aren't so bad: the hot water is scalding hot out of the tub tap, not so hot at the studio. The bathtub is larger and can hold more wool, getting more wool washed for the water. This hot water is still hot hot hot even 25 minutes later..... NTS: buy some thick rubber gloves for the next washing.







Anyway:









First wash - just added the wool, that's my Cat Achilles - he decided to "inspect" the proceedings. First wash after it soaked for awhile on the right. And below is the final rinse.

Then hanging out to dry: Inside on left, outside on right:

Now twisted back into hanks/skeins and the final color - natural white for Montedale fleece:

Finally, a close up shot with a penny - it seems to be a standard thing so one can get an idea of the weight of the yarn. I haven't done the WPI test on this stuff - yet.

Ok, not the greatest shot of the penny, but only three strands of the two ply were covering it. The sun coming in kinda blocked the rest.

Anyway, on to other things which I'll blog about in another post sometime later.

This one is long enough for now.

Have Fun!