Tonight in the small town of Pella, Iowa there was the Thursday Night Jamboree. (I'm not sure of the official name, but this fits.)
In addition to food and fun and mayhem, there was a woman with animals for show-and-tell.
The had an alpaca *swoons*, she had baby deer (so much more adorable than words can explain), she had a miniature horse, and.. get this.. 2 lambs (they looked more like grown up sheep to me, but what do I know?). They were show lambs. There were well groomed, clean, and gorgeous.
My mother (who I love dearly because I was too smitten to say anything) asked the woman who owned them if she used to the wool to spin yarn. Nope. The owner jokingly asked if I wanted it and my head snapped up so fast I may have gotten a wee bit of a neck injury.
Of course I wanted this wool. It's FREE WOOL. How much better could it get? The kind lady asked me if I was aware I'd have to wash it and "stuff" before I could spin it. Well.. yes. I had no idea how to prepare wool for spinning, but I could definitely learn how. "Alrighty, I work (at a place I'm not naming on the internet because she is MY free wool lady and no one will steal her from me) and you can come by and I'll give it to you. Have fun."
I then came home and researched the processes that need to be done in order to have wool ready to spin. It needs to be washed and carded for sure. (There's more than that, and many methods of doing each, but I'll leave it at that.) My mom has fabric dye, which after more research, works on wool as well. YES. In my dreams I'm going to be getting free wool, working with it, maybe dying it, and then selling it on Etsy and making big bucks. (Granted, I feel sort of inclined to give this woman some of my profits after I eventually start making money, but for now it's free and all mine.)
I'm going to try techniques from here and here. I'm tempted to buy this, and I need to buy one of these. Maybe eventually I can get one of these (which, as of now, is so far out of my budget it's not visible).
I'm really, really excited. (Did I mention she had an alpaca too? An alpaca just covered in lovely chocolate brown alpaca wool that looks so gosh darn hot in this Iowa summer and I have a feeling that the poor alpaca is going to need a haircut soon. I might have to ask about that.)
Oh, and onto other news, I am only a few rows away from finishing my green shawl. Today's a good day.
Creative title, no? I'm a teenage girl who enjoys knitting. A lot. Even more than I love knitting, I love shopping online. Put those two together and you get my bank account laughing at me and lots of yarn and pretty knitting-related stuff. It's pretty great.. the majority of the time.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
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- Alexandra
- I love a lot of things. I love Jesus, and I love my friends. I love boys, and I really love to knit. I'm your typical (but not so typical) teenage girl.
from experience, use the the Yarn Harlots way as if you do it in the washer not only will the lanolin be on the drum of the washer but worse even is that the hairs will eventually clog up the washer and many people had to replace washers because of this.
ReplyDeletethe best way to learn to spin is by taking a class. i got a wheel for christmas and i was a little ok but when i took the class overnight i became a complete success in making my own yarn. there are things the books usually don't tell you. i got lucky and got in a class for $60.
acid dyes are great for wool and carders are wonderful too if the fibers of the wool are not too long as it can be a daunting task. i bought an entire sheeps fleece and the hairs were too long so i took it to the mill to be carded and rewashed as the lanolin was way too hard to get out. i have another type that came clean easy and has a short staple and i card that easy with no problems.
may i ask what type of fleece your getting?
and I just thought i'd help you out a bit :)