Playing With Fiber

Since my last post with raw wool for sale, I've been getting questions and emails about what to do with fleece if you don't have all the expensive fiber tools (combs, carders, pickers, etc.) 

Pictured are some washed Corriedale locks, lower right, inexpensive dog combs and finished combed fiber, top, ready to spin!

Good questions!  And one I understand because I didn't always have the equipment I have now.  You know, there are tons of great videos, websites, articles, downloads available out and about by people that know a lot more than I do - do a search for them when you can and you'll learn a lot about processing or prepping fiber for spinning without all the equipment.  My post here isn't really a "how-to" I'm just sharing a few photos sitting on my couch in my living room with a basket full of washed fibers and some really inexpensive tools that can get you started on your fiber prep journey!

First you need nice fiber (see my last post if you're looking for great Corriedale fleece!)  Next, you need to wash that fiber (unless you're planning to spin in the grease)  See my series of posts on Washing Wool, The Way I Do starting here.  So now, you should have some nice clean wool ideally still in the lock formation.  At that point, you could just tease open each end of the lock, fluff it up a bit and spin from the lock.  Or you could flick card (using a flicker or an inexpensive dog brush - the kind with rather stiff wire teeth).  Here's a short, simple video showing the process.

As I've mentioned many times, I really like combing wool for spinning.  Wool combs are expensive, even the small ones.  So why not start with a pair of dog combs from the pet store, farm store or even discount stores!  Not perfect but it works....here are a few pictures of some that I picked up for .99 each in the clearance bin at the farm store:

Load one comb with a thin layer of fiber, not to thickly

In the picture above, I've combed the fiber from one comb to the other two times.  The little pile of fuzz both next to and on the comb is "waste" -short stuff, chaff, throw away.  Next to it is fiber ready to spin

Three little birds nests of combed "sliver"  A delight to spin!

I measured these particular dog combs and the tines are 3.5 and 4 inches wide.  Teeth are 1 inch high and the wooden handles are 3.5 inches long.  They're very comfortable to use.

And what if you don't have a spinning wheel yet?  Here's something I just discovered, thanks to my new fiber friend Jill ~ a support spindle!!!  See it nestled in the basket of fiber, below?

I can't tell you how fun this is for me!  I've never mastered the drop spindle and at this point, don't care to keep trying ;)  I've got three spinning wheels but I'm really enjoying learning the support spindle and have even made some "rustic" yarn on it already!  My point being, spindles (drop or support) are a good way to spin before you're ready to invest in a wheel.

Next Step, Yarn Sampling!

Alright, if we're ever going to get these socks knitted I better get back to work, right?  I still have a fleece preparation blog post I want to get done in July!

If you remember from our last sock spinning post, we had two one ounce samples of our Corriedale-Alpaca roving.  I spun the first and did a Navajo 3-ply (sometimes called chain-plying), you see that pictured to the left here.  A nice, round, plump and still squishy yarn!  I'm not sure if it shows in the photo but the sheen of this fiber is amazing!  I threw in the light grey Corriedale-Angora yarn just to see the contrast.

The next one ounce sample I did as a 2-ply.  Although I really liked the looks of it, when I began knitting the sample I could quickly feel the difference and my preference was the 3-ply.  Even my husband could see and feel the difference in the two swatches of fabric.  I was finishing up my 2-ply swatch so I could show it to you side by side with the 3-ply, when it occurred to me to try going down a needle size on the 2-ply yarn before I made my final decision, and I'm glad I did!  I was most happy with the 2-ply yarn and size 1 needles.

 Please excuse the sloppy samples in the picture above - I really should have dampened them down (wet blocked) to get them to lay better and they would show the stitch detail and size difference more (the edges are curling, so I'm not sure how clear this will be)  For both samples, I cast on 21 stitches.  Measuring just across the center stockinette portion of the samples I came up with 7 to 71/2 stitches to the inch on the size 1 needles.  I wish I could tell you how many yards I spun in each sample and I DID have that information written down...but now cannot find it!  Ugh...

So anyway, now comes the decision making process.  I like the firmness of the 3-ply yarn.  Experience and common sense tells me that the 3-ply is going to wear better for socks than the 2-ply, its sturdier.  Its softer and "cushier" on the feet.  It will also be very warm, and it will felt quite easily, just from wear.  If I knit the 2-ply on the size 1 needles, I'll still have a good firm fabric though not quite as dense and heavy.  They will probably fit nicer inside of shoes and for me, with my knitting tension, I'll have a bit more stretch to the leg of the sock.  There is probably a more technical way of describing this and there are sock knitting experts out there who have written books and articles to explain this all better than I am - LOL - I'm just sharing with you my rambling thought process, to show you how this spinning-knitting shepherdess comes to making sock yarn and socks!  I'd also like you to see that what it all comes down to is personal preference, personal knitting and spinning styles and most of all what makes you happy especially if you are making these socks for yourself.  Another thing to consider - the 2-ply will take less time to spin, and require less roving to the the same number of yards.

Now another possibility, something I've done numerous times in the past, is to spin both a 3-ply and a 2-ply yarn.  Knit the sock foot with the 3-ply and the leg with the 2-ply.  As spinners, we're able to adjust our spinning and get a 3-ply and a 2-ply that are approximately the same "size" aren't we?

So, what would you chose at this point?  While we decide, I'll leave you with a picture of Yarn On A Plate - I had to take a few minutes to spin up some wildly colored rolags I received as a gift.  So pretty and when I finished the little sample, I twisted it together with more of the Corriedale-Alpaca - see them below, and I'll meet you back here next time!

 

How To Go From A Sheep To A Sock...

A "How-To" post of sorts ;)

I love to make socks, I know I've shared that here before (though recently mittens have been my main focus).  To my way of thinking, there's no sock like a real wool sock and so it  starts for me with a sheep and a fleece.  In this case a lovely little black ewe named Isobel who has a very long staple length and a slightly more open crimp to her fleece than most of our Corriedales, long but very silky - just the kind I like for making hard wearing sock yarn!  She comes from the old Verlee line of Corriedale sheep in our flock and I love their wool.  Both Isobel and her sister (who's called "Sister", hehe) had such long fleeces that we sheared them at seven months old.

A head shot of Isobel above and another from this spring

So I have this lamb fleece, black - well, really more of a dark black cherry-cola color - that I'm planning to keep for myself and make my favorite blend for spinning sock yarn of 70% Corriedale wool and 30% alpaca.  I teach a class on spinning for sock yarn and I love showing and sharing how well this blend works for socks, but of course in the end its a matter of personal preference for both the spinner and the sock-wearer!  When I need alpaca fiber, I always go for the best and that comes from the farm of my friend and neighbor Maple at North Star Alpacas.  But this time, a call from a long-distance fiber friend changed the intent for Isobel's fleece!

My friend Susan emailed asking if I had a black or very dark fleece.  She knew it was a long shot because it wasn't shearing time, but it just so happened that we'd shorn those two ewe lambs and I had Isobel's fleece along with another kept back for myself from spring shearing (that was Hilda's fleece, but that's another fiber story - LOL!)  Susan had some alpaca from a farm local to her and she wanted to create a blend for spinning socks.  So even though these were fleeces I'd intended to keep, there's always more for me growing down in the barn and off the samples went to New England for sampling.

Fast forward a short time, a few emails and finally a phone call with a proposal - would I be interested in going together with my (Isobel's) wool and Susan's alpaca and sharing the resulting roving?  Sure I would!!!  So that is how our Friendship Roving came to be and a plan was hatched to do a long-distance spin-a-long and knit-a-long for a new pair of socks.  The alpaca came to Michigan and joined the Corriedale wool for a trip to Zeilingers Mill to be washed and processed.  (A note here ~ quite often when making socks I wash and comb the fleece myself, that really makes a nice fiber to spin.  But for larger quantities like we were doing here, I took advantage of the spring special at Z's and let them do it all!)

I meant for this to be just one long post about sheep to socks, but as usual I'm getting a bit long-winded and also I've been just to busy to sit by the computer for very long, so I'm going to break this up a bit for you...above you see two one-ounce balls of the roving ready for me to do a test-spin and sample for my socks.  I know it looks brown but that's just my camera, its really very dark ;)  In my next post, I'll share a bit more of my method/process for sock spinning.  I hope you'll come back for more!

Sisters of the Fleece

Fibery friends are some of the very best!

Over the years I've met some wonderful people through our sheep and wool, and many times they become treasured friends.  That is truly the case with my friend in New England who has been spinning and knitting with Serenity Farms Corriedale for over a year now.  Recently we joined forces to create a special roving from two of my Corriedale lamb fleeces and some of her local alpaca.  We're beginning a long-distance spin-a-long with a current goal of making socks.  How fun is that?

On Monday, a package arrived in my mail box and I was thrilled to open it and find this wonderful surprise - a little shoulder shawl spun and knit by my friend for me!!!  The yarn is made from Serenity Farms Elizabeth, a rich espresso brown ewe with very fine fleece.  And isn't the vintage pin perfect along with the shawlette?!? I absolutely adore receiving gifts made for me from my own wool, it's one of my favorite treats.

We've nicknamed our new roving "Sisters of the Fleece" and it is a true New England-Midwest creation.  While we can't actually visit in person as we sit and spin away, we are enjoying each others company in spirit... what a blessing!

Spinning, Sparkles and Snow

I was going to write a blog post about some things we're working on around the farm, but then I was distracted by some spinning and knitting and the lovely snow.

How many inches fell where you are?  We only have about 2.5 inches but its very pretty.  It seems to have stopped for the day, but the wind is blowing things around out there.

Spinning....spinning batts....spinning challenges.  I was poking around in the fiber stash the other day and came across some pretty batts I'd carded last year at a friends house.  There wasn't alot, just a few ounces, but it was so pretty and so soft.  Corriedale, of course, both natural and dyed along with angora and just a bit of "twinkle". 

Then it just so happened that the lovely group at Ennea Collective mentioned a spinning challenge for 2012, and the first of those was spinning batts.  Well, it was just meant to be that I finish spinning these up, don't you think?  That's exactly what I did, and I loved every single minute of it.  Clean, soft, well prepared fiber, watching the colors glow and change as they slid through my hands and onto the wheel.  Sigh...delightful!  Let me show you a little bit of what I did to spin ~

In the picture above, you are actually seeing two batts but each has been divided in half giving me four lengths of fiber to spin.  In other words, sections one and three are from one batt and sections two and four are from another.  I did this for two reasons.  First to give me a more manageable amount of fiber to draft and spin and second so that I could blend the colors a bit more on the wheel.  I think you can see pretty clearly in the photo that I had more of the dyed wool in one batt than I did the other!   I spun one bobbin full in the sequence above - sections 1,2, 3 then 4.  I spun a second bobbin in the order of 2, 3, 4 then 1.  And then I plied them together.  Is that clear as mud?  LOL...do you even care ((grin))  Was I overthinking the process?  Maybe, but I like the end results, pictured below ~

About 364 yards, 2-ply, both spun and plied on my Louet S-17, medium whorl.  This might become mittens or a hat or a cowl, not sure yet.  Or maybe the Windchaser Shawl by Lori Law, from the same issue of Ennea.  I could spin some solid grey for the border.  Hmmm...my yarn is a little heavier than fingering, more a sport weight, so I may not have enough.  But wouldn't that be pretty?

This was such a happy project for me, thanks Ennea crew for suggesting spinning batts!

Here's another happy project, a knitting one.  At my LYS, Sip 'n Knit, we're knitting socks.  This is actually a pattern that I wrote up called Sip 'n Sock.  It's simple, really, just a basic sock with a coffee cup motif.  I wanted to do a shop sample out of a soft squishy yarn and we had been having those dreary grey days, so I grabbed two hanks of Cascade 128.  How's this for a bright sock, LOL!  I shouldn't lose these, should I?  The red is some of my yarn, leftovers from making mittens.  Looking at it now, I kind of wish I would have made the heel red as well.  I need to hurry up and finish the second sock so I'll have those to wear around the house now that the temperature has dropped into the teens!

Finally, here's what's next on the spinning wheel, another "finish-up" project of just four ounces:

This was named "Ugly Duck" by its producer, but I don't think its ugly at all!  Unique maybe ;)  Anyway, I came across this the other day, too, fiber I received in a swap and thought I just need to finish spinning it as well.  I'm pretty sure its going to remain a single.  And I think I need to check that fiber stash more often! 

I'm looking forward to spinning at Sip 'n Knit on Saturday.  Any of you reading near Ithaca Michigan, feel free to join us!  We'll be there from 10 am till about 2 pm.

Spinning Wheel For Sale

I have decided to sell one of my spinning wheels, my lovely little Louet S-45 ~

It has been a terrific wheel, spins like a dream and is in excellent condition.  I have a good price on it, including a few extras.  You can read all about it right here.  While you are there, why not take a look at some of the spinning fibers we have available this fall?  The sample yarns shown below were spun from some of them - Pasture Land, Michigan Red Cedar (this would be wonderful to spin amidst autumns early colors!), Midnight Dances and Dawns Early Light.  We also have combed Corriedale top, from our very best white sheep.

You can find out more about the fibers at The Wool Mitten blog, the same place the spinning wheel is listed, or if you have any questions don't hesitate to email me at serenityfarmswool@yahoo.com.  If you are at all like me, the cool nights and Indian Summer days have me wanting to do nothing more than spin and knit!

Some of you have asked about this other blog, The Wool Mitten.  I have used it for a while just as a place to list fibers until we are able to completely revamp our main website.  This blog will remain our main farm blog though.  Just so you know ;)

Spinning, Touring, Fleece & Flowers

If you are a fiber person, especially if you like to spin and are on the internet at all, you have probably already heard of the "Tour de Fleece" - basically people around the world join together to spin during the Tour de France bicycling event and challenge themselves to spin in various ways (and possibly even earn prizes).  I don't go overboard in joining groups to do this because I don't have the time to spend on the computer.  But I do like to spin along, its nice to have a goal, and this year I am playing along with two of my favorite Ravelry groups - Knitters Book of Wool and Ennea Collective.  I am even contributing a prize!

I've been really good about staying on task this year!  I decided that I wanted to commit to spinning every day of the "tour", at least ten minutes.  I decided that I wanted to focus on spinning my own fibers from here at the farm (Corriedale) and that my goal was to spin yarn for a specific project - in this case Anne's lovely Currach Stole from the April 2011 edition of Ennea.  I've had my eye on this pattern since its release because I thought it would be a lovely way to showcase the variety of Corriedale colors we have in our flock.  I originally thought I would wash, hand comb and then spin Ainsley's multi color fleece:

Ainsley's fleece has pale grey, charcoal grey and smokey brown colors plus is very soft and fine

But a troublesome arm and shoulder did away with that idea and I decided instead to spin from rovings I already had in natural colors.  A call from my friend Pat to see if I could get away for a night at the lakeside cottage gave me a perfect place to start the tour!  Peaceful, pretty, quiet and with only four of us there (all spinners and knitters) I knew I would easily be on my way to success!

Haha ~ I was also easily sidetracked ;)  I loaded up all of my pretty natural color rovings and my wheel, then at the last minute threw in a small amount of dyed Corriedale top that had been sitting around just because I wanted to turn it into something and get it out of my spinning basket.  Add to that a jeweled tone of Coopworth/Silk roving called "Leopard Frog" from Carol's Hidden Valley Woolen Mill (Carol is our hostess at the cabin) and I was off and spinning the two fibers together!  Spinning Day 1 and 2 of the Tour resulted in the yarn you see pictured at the opening of this post.  Here is another "in progress" photo ~

When all was said and done, I have about 220 yards of 2-ply Corriedale-Coopworth-Silk yarn, spun and plyed on my Louet S-45 wheel.

We returned home on the fourth of July, the third day of the TDF, and I returned to my planned spinning, the natural colored Corriedale.  I had weighed out one ounce bumps of each, and found that I could spin half an ounce in the ten to fifteen minutes per day I was challanging myself to.  Then in the evenings I could ply and keep myself quite consistent.  I am spinning this yarn on the Louet S-17, aiming for a yarn that is something like a Cascade 220.  I'm pretty close, although Corriedale does "pouf" when washed!

Anyway, enough talking - how about another finished yarn photo?  Here are the first skeins, pictured with their rovings...From left to right, the white includes wool from Charlotte, Autry, Amanda and other white sheep in our flock.  The silvery grey is from some of the "Verlee Corriedales" - Violet, Bree and Eve; the smokey charcoal grey is mostly Carson and his sister Carley while the rich brown is Colette and her daughter Elizabeth.  Anne's pattern was made with three different colors of wool, but I wanted to use these four.  This is going to be a warm and snuggly wrap!  I'm having to sit on my hands to keep from picking up the needles and pattern and start knitting, when I know I need to keep spinning - although I have nearly convinced myself that I should do a small swatch to be sure the yarn is a good match, LOL!

I've been spinning mostly in the early mornings, sitting on the back porch while the air is still cool.  This is also the perfect time for some morning prayers and devotions!  I am surrounded by the farm - all I have to do is look around me and see scenes like this from the flower beds ~

I can look to my left and see this bed of daylilies, Asiatic lilies, purple spiderwort and fading lavender.  The Oriental lilies and tall phlox will open soon!

Maybe tomorrow I can show you some more of the flowers in bloom, but for now I'll end this post.  The spinning wheel is calling me!

April Foolishness

I know it's lambing time and I will admit to being anxious to see more of the lambs from our new ram, but all I can think about is fiber!

We sheared a few weeks ago and while I was able to get through skirting most of the white Corriedale fleeces, the turn in the weather and other commitements have kept my hands out of the natural colors (greys, blacks, browns) I like to skirt outside in the natural light and it just hasn't been possible. But maybe today. I have reserved fleeces that need to make their way to their new homes and some fleeces that I am planning to keep for myself that I want to get my hands in and on.

Some of our raw fleeces (like Amanda's pictured above) go on to be billowing clouds of vanilla cream frosting like the combed top below, processed at Zeilingers Mill here in Michigan

Don't you just want to fall right in and roll around in all of that fibery goodness?

That is my April Foolishness ;) And if you are interested in some of your own (Serenity Farms wool, that is) please feel free to contact us at serenityfarmswool at yahoo dot com. We still have some raw fleeces available, as well as some of the combed top you see pictured above.

Lambing is Early This Year

Corriedale mama Sarah with baby Helen, looking stylish is her lamb sweater!

We used to lamb in January and early February here at Serenity Farms. I'm not really sure why, except that's what my folks always did ;) And truth be told, I didn't mind early morning barn checks. I never woke the girls up in the middle of the night to check for lambing...I made my last check after supper sometime and unless someone appeared to be getting ready to lamb, left them alone until morning. My mom always said that if you wake them up, they'll probably lamb!

Anyway, one day my husband asked me why we lambed that early? We aren't breeding for club lambs or early freezer lamb sales. LOL...he brought up a good point. So we began to breed for first of April. And I have to admit, its been nice. Last year, though, we finally had to sell our senior ram to a head up a new flock. It was time - we had to many ewes closely related to him. But my dad had the idea of putting him in with just a few females and get a few more lambs from the big guy. Another good idea and we did just that, putting Autry in with the five ewes he had always crossed the best with in the flock. Then he left and about 40 days later, we turned the new Corriedale ram in with all of the girls and figured that if Autry hadn't settled those five, the new ram would.

Well, along comes January and then it turns really cold in February. And I'm really glad we aren't lambing. Until last Monday, when I headed for the barn to do chores and heard a lamb baaa-ing!!! My first thought was a premature birth, but when I stepped in and found a beautiful full term lamb following her mama around - one of Autry's "girls" - I promptly remembered our grand plan. Oh my gosh...did I ever feel like a terrible shepherd!!! So, my daughter came to help me out and we moved those five ewes (plus new baby Helen) into the large, clean and dry area of the basement barn and, other than not having them shorn yet, everything is fine. Yesterday, a second set of lambs arrived - fabulous twins, a bright white ram and jet black ewe lamb!

They are all doing great, but I'm still glad that most of the flock isn't due till April...

FLEECE FOR SALE ~ SOLD ~
We will be shearing the entire flock mid-March, but I have one partial Corriedale lamb fleece from last years shearing that I guess I will sell. It is a beautiful, silver-blue, very fine crimp with an average 4.5 to 5-inch staple length from a lamb named Felicia. There are some dry tips that I think you can see in the photo below. A little over two pounds for $25 plus shipping (a discount, as our lamb fleeces are normally $15 per pound) Email me at serenityfarmswool@yahoo.com if you are interested


Did I mention that I'm still glad most of the flock isn't due till April? And I wonder what else I might have forgotten....

New Year ~ Old Projects

It has been kind of fun to look back over my January postings here at the Blog to see what projects, knitting and spinning, I have finished and which ones I have abandoned. It seems to be a theme with me to review those at the beginning of each year and I thought I might as well keep up the "tradition"

I am not a big project kind of person, for the most part. I don't make large elaborate sweaters, or shawls, or afghans - at least not often. I do like socks and mittens and cowls or neckwarmers. Hats sometimes, though I never seem to get hats just right and they are either to big or to small. I have come to realize, too, after my early knitting obsession with lace that I really don't care for small yarn and small needles ;) Need to really consider that one and if I come to peace with it, there may be some really lovely laceweight yarns for sale one of these days!

Anyway, back to some of the projects I have been working on recently.

Here is one of my very favorites, probably because it was a "sheep to mitt" project - a home raised sheep, handwashed fleece, combed into lovely top that I then spun and navajo-plyed and knit:



The pattern is Cuppa Joe Mitts by Anne Podlesak (Wooly Wonka Fibers) from the new online spinning knitting magazine Ennea Collective If you haven't checked out Ennea, do so right away! There have been two issues published so far and it is a very enjoyable and informative resource. They also have a Ravelry group here. Anne's blog is one of my favorites and I have followed it for a long time, so it was fun to knit one of her patterns. The yarn is 100% Corriedale lamb from one of Violet's lambs, Freddie.

Another project I worked on and finished were these mittens made from 100% CVM pencil roving from my friend Bonnie's Sheepy Thyme Farm. The pattern will be available in kit form from Bonnie soon, with the roving to knit them from. The pattern has directions for both the fingerless model shown and full mittens as well. I have been playing around with a matching neckwarmer pattern but haven't gotten that just right yet:


This pencil roving is so nice to work with, light and fluffy, and unlike others I have used it holds together nicely even if you have to frog or tink back. I would like to try overdyeing some to see how it comes out!

Something else I have really enjoyed this past year is the wool-a-long in the Knitters Book of Wool group over at Ravelry. Do you know about this book? Do you own it yet? If you don't, and you enjoy wool at any stage, then you need to get your hands on a copy. Written by Clara Parkes of Knitters Review fame, it is a treasure...and so is the Ravelry group with a fun and kind group of enablers - um, I mean knitters/spinners and others join together to try a different wool each month. I have not participated every month, but these are projects I have worked on:










The wool for January 2011 is Finnsheep wool and I am knitting these Honeycomb Finn Mittens with yarn I spun from rovings purchased at both Bella Vita Farms and Stillmeadow Finnsheep. Love the wool, love the yarn, love the pattern (I have made it before) I am nearly finished with the pair of mittens and I have enough white roving from Bella Vita to spin up some sock yarn and start the Windjammer Socks pattern on January 15th with some other Ravelers. Check out the group if you would like to join in, too!

Dorset wool was one of my surprise favorites from the wool-a-long, maybe because I am lucky enough to have a friend who raises old-fashioned Horned Dorset sheep. I bought some Dorset lambswool roving from Cindy at Ewe and I Farm in New Hampshire to make these Sweet Fern Mitts from the book. I spun and navajo plyed the yarn for a nice round yarn that shows the cables well.

I call them Sweet Gracie Mitts because Gracie is the name of the sheep that donated the wool ;)

One ongoing project from the book is my Comfy Corriedale Cardy. Although we have not (yet!) studied Corriedale, you all know it is my favorite wool so I chose it for this pattern. This is a great sweater so far and is quite mindless for the most part, so I pick it up and work on it occasionally. I had kind of hoped to have it finished by my birthday later this month but not sure that will happen. This photo is just a beginning shot. The wool is 100% chocolate brown Corriedale from Ainsley in her younger days (she is much more grey now)

These are not the only knitting and spinning projects I have started or completed but just a few I thought I would take time to share here. I will leave this post with some pictures of a delicious roving I treated myself to and have been spinning. It is called Cathedral and is a merino-yak blend from the earlier mentioned Wooly Wonka Fibers. It is a dream to spin and super soft, so I have to chose the project carefully, one that will show of the yarn and be next to my skin so I can savor it. Stay warm and hope you have enjoyed seeing just a few of my winter time projects! What are you working on?

A Short Study of Wool

CVM wool, as a matter of fact, along with other wool junkies at The Knitters Book of Wool group over on Ravelry. By the way, if you don't already own The Knitters Book of Wool by Clara Parkes, run right out now and purchase it for your fiber/knitting library...it is fantastic!

CVM (or California Variegated Mutant) wool was an easy one for me, as I have several Corriedale/CVM cross sheep in my flock, including one of our rams, Derek:

Handsome Derek, with his cool hair-do, was officially chosen as the June mascot for the group...a title he carries with honor ;)

Anyway, I knew I could use Derek's wool for my project and I am very familiar with it but I wanted to do more and realized that I had never worked with 100% CVM or Romeldale from the raw stage to yarn. A call to my friend Bonnie at Sheepy Thyme Farm confirmed that she did have some raw fleece available (as well as several new lambs on the ground) so a "field trip" was arranged! Now, two trips later ~ LOL ~ not only do I have some raw fleece, but I also have planned some new additions to the sheep flock! How does this happen? Well, its almost as easy to collect sheep as it is to collect wool and yarn, especially when they are so lovely.

Here are some of the fleeces I came home with:


That gorgeous moorit, above on the right is from a lovely new ram. And below are a few of the ones I have already washed sample locks of (on the left are unwashed locks and on the right, washed:



Below is some of Derek's fleece to sample:

I am having so much fun and trying to take good notes...look for more here in the next week or so as I comb and spin the samples ~ oh my!

Black Corriedale Lamb Fleece and More

For whatever reason my webhost won't let me load any updated pages today. Why does that always seem to happen on a day I have things for sale? Hmmm...anyway, that is why I am posting these few things to trusty Blogger ;)

Eli - Black Corriedale lamb fleece (photos below) ~



Fine crimp, good staple length (about 4 inches) and best of all, natural black! We purchased this lamb at six months of age and he had not been coated up to that point, so there is vm in this fleece. For that reason it is priced at $8 per pound (lamb fleeces usually sell for $15 per pound). About 2.5 pounds available and I will include 4 ounces of bay black alpaca with your purchase
~ S O L D ~

Also for sale is the book pictured above "The Natural Knitter...How to Choose, Use and Knit Natural Fibers" by Barbara Albright. Includes patterns and dyeing information - a beautiful book! Priced new at $32.50 - I've barely opened it so it is in very good condition ~ S O L D ~

Finally, I still have a beautiful moorit Icelandic fleece for sale from my friend Cherie's farm... Very clean and a rich color - a bit darker than the photo shows. The thel on this fleece is super, super soft and it is one that is easy to seperate from the tog if that is what you like to do, but equally beautiful processed together. This is a ram fleece, but he was shorn well ahead of breeding season so not much of that "rammy" smell! About 2.5 pounds for $25 plus shipping


We accept Paypal, check or money order. If you have any questions or to check availability, please email me at serenityfarmswool@yahoo.com. These items would normally be listed at our website, Serenity Farms. Thank you for checking them here at the blog ;)

Where Did July Go?

Not only did the days of this last month seem to fly by, they haven't felt much like summer weather (which is actually just fine with me!) - we did not have a single day in Michigan that was over 85 degrees and there has been no humidity. The sheep and I like this ;) So does the lettuce (pictured above) which continues to grow nicely in my garden without turning bitter or bolting!

I had lots of lovely blog posts planned, but summer is just such a busy time, don't you agree? And now, here it is August...

But since I would like to share with you how our summer is going, I thought I would just post a few pictures and try to do better with the updates this next month!

There has been FIBER ~


Corriedale roving with dyed silk noil


Spun yarn and knitted sample

And the SHEEP that provide the fiber ~


Ewes on pasture

The LAMBS have grown well! Some we will keep in the flock ~


Deborah and her ewe lamb

And some have found new homes ~


Ainsley's ram lamb, Forrest

Time with FIBERY FRIENDS ~


Fiber group here at the farm, including a drop spindle class with Donna from Spinning Daydreams (this photo is actually from June)


Spinning at Mary's farm, including our youngest member, little "E" sitting on her grandma's lap

Time with FAMILY and FRIENDS ~


Friend Mary and brother Michael at the folks' farm


Precious Grandbabies covered with chocolate from s'mores, playing hide and seek in the hay field...such wonderful summertime memories!

I marked the end of this month in my garden, pulling weeds, while all around me the air was filled with the heady fragrance of the Oriental lilies, various Garden Phlox, Roses and even some of the Daylilies that are fragrant. The moon was already glowing in the twilight sky and fireflies were in abundance, even landing on my arm and glowing brightly before flying off. I could hear Bill and Alex discussing something through the open kitchen window. I thought of this verse from the Psalms, Psalms 65:8 "Thou makest the outgoing of the morning and evening to rejoice" and I rejoiced along with God and this evening He had provided - in fact a whole month of these mornings and evenings!