Weekend Fiber Fun
Nov. 7th, 2023 09:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unicorndukeSaturday I got some fleeces washed. Well, one and a half. Better than none! I put the mohair fleece in two baskets to soak and one pound of merino fleece from last year's New England Fiber Festival to soak, then ran out for dog food and an estate sale where I scored a nice workbench, a very nice vice for $50, and a bunch of assorted hand tools. Very pleased with the vice. I'm going to work on the shed in the next two weeks, get it cleaned up and start building some brackets to hold wood and a workbench that goes over the wood. I want to turn it into a workshop since the basement really hasn't been working for that.
Came home and in between baking, I washed the mohair and scoured the merino. I also made granola, gingersnaps and yogurt. In the future, I won't bake while doing this because I had to wash my hands a lot in between everything. For the mohair, I used hot tap water (120F) for the soak, then hot tap water with soap, then two hot tap water rinses. I let the last one cool, then did six (6!!!), cold water rinses until the water was clear. To be fair, the cold water rinses were plopping the basket back in the bin, using the shower nozzle on the hose until the fleece was completely covered in water, then removing the fleece and dumping the water again.
Side note: I use old folding produce bins that have a lot of holes in them but mostly solid bottoms. They fit into 30 (maybe?) gallon black tubs. This system works really good for fleeces since it is a lot of horizontal room to soak fleeces. The produce bins are really lightweight and easy to pick up out of the bins. They fit 1-3 pounds of fleece in them depending on the type of fleece and how much I care (alpaca, stuff an entire fleece in it, wool, only a pound or two)
For the merino, I only did one pound of the two pounds that I have. This was a good idea. I hot tap water soaked it in the morning, then gave it another hot tap water soak right before scouring. Then I heated 2 gallons of water on the stove until it was at least 190F. Took the fleece out of the bin, added soap and poured 1-2 gallons of hot tap water into the bin. Added the heated water, then plopped the fleece back in and gently pushed the fleece fully into the water. It helps to pre-soak the fleece so it will actually go into the water instead of floating. Let it sit for 20 minutes. The water has to stay above 140F to keep the lanolin from cooling and sticking to the fleece again. While fleece was soaking, put another 2 gallons of water on the stove (put a lid on it, it will heat up faster). Repeat the soap, hot tap water, hot heated water step two more times for a high lanolin fleece like merino (or CVM, polworth, corriedale, ramboulliet, or other variations on merino), lower lanolin fleeces like medium or longwools can do with one or two depending on how greasy they are.
Then I did two hot tap water, hot heated water rinses. Then two hot tap water rinses. The last one probably didn't need to happen since the water was mostly clear but it didn't hurt.
Then I squeeze all the water I could out of them and laid the mohair to dry on my skirting table. The merino came inside and went in front of my little foot heater that swings back and forth. It dries a fleece in 3-4 hours as long as I can flip the fleece around every half hour or so. I only run it when I'm in the house and paying attention. It dried by Sunday evening, so I brought the mohair in and that is being dried behind me as I type. I let the fleeces sit for another day or two before I bag them because it's hard to tell if a fleece is fully dry and I don't want to seal them in plastic if they aren't fully done drying.
Sunday, I went to New England Fiber Festival. I went primarily to help a vendor friend pack up her booth, but decided to spend the whole day there. It's a wonderful festival, it's indoors, really accessible for wheelchairs since the parking lot and all areas are level concrete or pavement. The aisles are really wide, the booths are all pretty spacious and it's not super crowded at least on Sunday. There's a decent amount of seating around, both benches and places to sit and eat. It's very chill, especially in comparison to Rhinebeck. Lots more chances to talk to vendors.
I got to talk to a shearer who was there with a vendor. I learned from her at the VT shearing school and I had about a million questions to ask her now that I've been shearing for a bit. She was wonderful to talk to and was really open and willing to answer my questions because she's only been shearing full time for five years or so and really remembered what it was like to be in the same spot as me. There are a lot of shearers who have been doing it for a million years and while they have good advice, they don't really remember the awkward place I'm in right now. I gave her gingersnaps as thanks.
After that, I wandered around a bunch and bought 8 oz of Finn roving, which had been on my list to pick up, some beautiful colored roving that is a blend of some breed types that I've bought before and enjoyed spinning. I bought it in colors other than purple because I have a ton of purple roving right now. I got a deep maroon red, and a tan and green mix. I also picked up one small Shetland fleece. The fleece sale is so tempting in so many ways. I need to spend a day each week getting fleeces scoured so that I can store them better. I don't want to squish them into bins or buckets until they're washed, so I have an entire bookshelf devoted to holding fleeces.
I wore an N95 the whole day and I think it gave me a headache from pressure on the bridge of my nose. I also know I hold my jaw in a funny position when I wear one, so that probably also had to do with it. But packing up the booth went smoothly other than the person next to us blocking the big loading door with a rental truck so we couldn't get the trailer backed in to load for 20 minutes while he spent his sweet time securing some tables down. But I hit the road before dark, so all was well. And I slept the headache off no problem.
I spent most of crafting last night quilting the jacket pieces, I only have the back left to go. I also got advice on my next weaving project, making it wide since I couldn't decide wide or narrow. I got all the bins cleaned up since it rained overnight and actually had success with my indigo processing. I finished running the water through a piece of cloth and now I have some gooey indigo. Not a lot but better than zero considering I didn't know what I was really doing. I think I could have let the plants ferment more but ah well.
I'm leaving for a work trip first thing tomorrow morning and getting back late Thursday so I'm going to miss my weaver's guild meeting which makes me sad.
Came home and in between baking, I washed the mohair and scoured the merino. I also made granola, gingersnaps and yogurt. In the future, I won't bake while doing this because I had to wash my hands a lot in between everything. For the mohair, I used hot tap water (120F) for the soak, then hot tap water with soap, then two hot tap water rinses. I let the last one cool, then did six (6!!!), cold water rinses until the water was clear. To be fair, the cold water rinses were plopping the basket back in the bin, using the shower nozzle on the hose until the fleece was completely covered in water, then removing the fleece and dumping the water again.
Side note: I use old folding produce bins that have a lot of holes in them but mostly solid bottoms. They fit into 30 (maybe?) gallon black tubs. This system works really good for fleeces since it is a lot of horizontal room to soak fleeces. The produce bins are really lightweight and easy to pick up out of the bins. They fit 1-3 pounds of fleece in them depending on the type of fleece and how much I care (alpaca, stuff an entire fleece in it, wool, only a pound or two)
For the merino, I only did one pound of the two pounds that I have. This was a good idea. I hot tap water soaked it in the morning, then gave it another hot tap water soak right before scouring. Then I heated 2 gallons of water on the stove until it was at least 190F. Took the fleece out of the bin, added soap and poured 1-2 gallons of hot tap water into the bin. Added the heated water, then plopped the fleece back in and gently pushed the fleece fully into the water. It helps to pre-soak the fleece so it will actually go into the water instead of floating. Let it sit for 20 minutes. The water has to stay above 140F to keep the lanolin from cooling and sticking to the fleece again. While fleece was soaking, put another 2 gallons of water on the stove (put a lid on it, it will heat up faster). Repeat the soap, hot tap water, hot heated water step two more times for a high lanolin fleece like merino (or CVM, polworth, corriedale, ramboulliet, or other variations on merino), lower lanolin fleeces like medium or longwools can do with one or two depending on how greasy they are.
Then I did two hot tap water, hot heated water rinses. Then two hot tap water rinses. The last one probably didn't need to happen since the water was mostly clear but it didn't hurt.
Then I squeeze all the water I could out of them and laid the mohair to dry on my skirting table. The merino came inside and went in front of my little foot heater that swings back and forth. It dries a fleece in 3-4 hours as long as I can flip the fleece around every half hour or so. I only run it when I'm in the house and paying attention. It dried by Sunday evening, so I brought the mohair in and that is being dried behind me as I type. I let the fleeces sit for another day or two before I bag them because it's hard to tell if a fleece is fully dry and I don't want to seal them in plastic if they aren't fully done drying.
Sunday, I went to New England Fiber Festival. I went primarily to help a vendor friend pack up her booth, but decided to spend the whole day there. It's a wonderful festival, it's indoors, really accessible for wheelchairs since the parking lot and all areas are level concrete or pavement. The aisles are really wide, the booths are all pretty spacious and it's not super crowded at least on Sunday. There's a decent amount of seating around, both benches and places to sit and eat. It's very chill, especially in comparison to Rhinebeck. Lots more chances to talk to vendors.
I got to talk to a shearer who was there with a vendor. I learned from her at the VT shearing school and I had about a million questions to ask her now that I've been shearing for a bit. She was wonderful to talk to and was really open and willing to answer my questions because she's only been shearing full time for five years or so and really remembered what it was like to be in the same spot as me. There are a lot of shearers who have been doing it for a million years and while they have good advice, they don't really remember the awkward place I'm in right now. I gave her gingersnaps as thanks.
After that, I wandered around a bunch and bought 8 oz of Finn roving, which had been on my list to pick up, some beautiful colored roving that is a blend of some breed types that I've bought before and enjoyed spinning. I bought it in colors other than purple because I have a ton of purple roving right now. I got a deep maroon red, and a tan and green mix. I also picked up one small Shetland fleece. The fleece sale is so tempting in so many ways. I need to spend a day each week getting fleeces scoured so that I can store them better. I don't want to squish them into bins or buckets until they're washed, so I have an entire bookshelf devoted to holding fleeces.
I wore an N95 the whole day and I think it gave me a headache from pressure on the bridge of my nose. I also know I hold my jaw in a funny position when I wear one, so that probably also had to do with it. But packing up the booth went smoothly other than the person next to us blocking the big loading door with a rental truck so we couldn't get the trailer backed in to load for 20 minutes while he spent his sweet time securing some tables down. But I hit the road before dark, so all was well. And I slept the headache off no problem.
I spent most of crafting last night quilting the jacket pieces, I only have the back left to go. I also got advice on my next weaving project, making it wide since I couldn't decide wide or narrow. I got all the bins cleaned up since it rained overnight and actually had success with my indigo processing. I finished running the water through a piece of cloth and now I have some gooey indigo. Not a lot but better than zero considering I didn't know what I was really doing. I think I could have let the plants ferment more but ah well.
I'm leaving for a work trip first thing tomorrow morning and getting back late Thursday so I'm going to miss my weaver's guild meeting which makes me sad.
