Don't think I've mentioned this before, but I have an eBay 'About Me' page. It's not particularly exciting, but I try to keep it up to date with what's going on in my eBay life. http://members.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=wool_ranch
'M selling wool, raw wool - mostly white, little bit of gray, some of which placed at the county fair, and about 25 or so pounds of it. After that's gone I've got a bunch of LOOK magazines, Song magazines, and a bunch of other old stuff that'll go up on eBay.
School update! I registered today and actually got all of my classes. I really can't wait until I go up another priority bump, because I just barely got them. What's funny about classes this semester is that I'll be in the same room from 8 to 2:10, Tuesdays and Thursdays, for all of my computer science classes. I just know I'll be sick of CS by 2. The teachers' are pretty good, or so's been my experience. CS isn't really my thing, and they can teach me. :)
Showing posts with label wool. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wool. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Monday, November 2, 2009
Sheep fleece
Sheep wool - it's a fun and useful material, but there's a lot of work that goes into turning it from a warm covering for a sheep into a finished project. First, it must be sheared off the sheep as a single piece, or two, as was the case with the fleece I worked on today. This once was skirted, meaning there was no wool or hairs from the belly, legs, or head. Secondly the wool is washed. If the fleece is extremely dirty, it needs to soak for at least a day before it can be washed.
Only small bits (a few large handfuls) are washed at a time. Any detergent can be used, so long as it's not much, and the water used to wash and rinse must be at the same temperature. (Meaning, any pre-washed wool has to be washed and rinsed in cool water.) If it's not, it'll felt, and I'm looking for wool that can be spun.
Just washing is fun, although wet wool really does stink! Although the wool was not exceptionally dirty, it was on the brown side, and right before my eyes it turned into a beautiful white.
Before anything can be done with the wool, it has to dry, which can take a day or more. This step is easy, though, as the wool is simply spread out and I occasionally fluff it up as it dries.
Then the wool is carded. This fluffs the wool up and spreads out the fibers, making it possible to spin the wool, and is done using wool cards. A wool card is simply a flat brush with a handle that is covered with short curved hooks. One or two cards may be used for this part of the process. It goes faster with two cards, but I'm only going to be using one for now. Larger cards also speed up the process, but they begin to get harder to work with when the card size increases. :(. For now, I'm just going to be using small ones.
A single card is used by taking a small clump of washed wool and brushing downwards with the card. (See? Easy!) Two cards are used by spreading a clump of wool across one, holding the second card with the hooks facing each other and the handles on opposite sides. I would (very!) gently pull the wool from one card to the other, working from the top of the cards. To remove the wool, I would turn the empty card over to match the handles and brush down - voila, a large handful of wool carded to a soft, fluffy pile.
Wow! Long post. But I'm thoroughly excited about my new project, so I think it deserves a long one.
Word Count since last post:
Dragon's Children: 969
Nightmare: 262
Only small bits (a few large handfuls) are washed at a time. Any detergent can be used, so long as it's not much, and the water used to wash and rinse must be at the same temperature. (Meaning, any pre-washed wool has to be washed and rinsed in cool water.) If it's not, it'll felt, and I'm looking for wool that can be spun.
Just washing is fun, although wet wool really does stink! Although the wool was not exceptionally dirty, it was on the brown side, and right before my eyes it turned into a beautiful white.
Before anything can be done with the wool, it has to dry, which can take a day or more. This step is easy, though, as the wool is simply spread out and I occasionally fluff it up as it dries.
Then the wool is carded. This fluffs the wool up and spreads out the fibers, making it possible to spin the wool, and is done using wool cards. A wool card is simply a flat brush with a handle that is covered with short curved hooks. One or two cards may be used for this part of the process. It goes faster with two cards, but I'm only going to be using one for now. Larger cards also speed up the process, but they begin to get harder to work with when the card size increases. :(. For now, I'm just going to be using small ones.
A single card is used by taking a small clump of washed wool and brushing downwards with the card. (See? Easy!) Two cards are used by spreading a clump of wool across one, holding the second card with the hooks facing each other and the handles on opposite sides. I would (very!) gently pull the wool from one card to the other, working from the top of the cards. To remove the wool, I would turn the empty card over to match the handles and brush down - voila, a large handful of wool carded to a soft, fluffy pile.
Wow! Long post. But I'm thoroughly excited about my new project, so I think it deserves a long one.
Word Count since last post:
Dragon's Children: 969
Nightmare: 262
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