Wednesday, February 20, 2008

I love this fleece!

This was all the grunge that was picked from the fleece, pre-washing. No second cuts and VM to speak of. A good fleece.

The fleece was carefully divided up and bagged in mesh lingerie bags. These are great! They're a dollar at the dollar store and are perfect for dyeing and fleece washing. The bags won't last forever but the price is right.

Sunday was a good day for fleece washing - it was warm and sunny. I usually do the first two washing outside because I'm paranoid of the grease clogging up my washing machine. After the initial washes, the rinse/soaks are done in the washing machine with no agitation.

Wet fleece drying on a rack...to accentuate any home decor. I'm just itching to start spinning this.

Thankful for:
1. Fibrefest is two weeks away.
2. I got the Friday off to go to Fibrefest with my friends. Yay!
3. Daffodils and tulips are coming out of the ground.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Perendale/Romey fleece

Canada Post is great! Why? Because they bring me all the neat stuff I ordered. Yesterday, 2.5 kg of smelly Perendale/Romney fleece (plus an assortment of silk fibre as well) arrived for me at work in a little itty bitty box. Good thing the people at Treenway pack well. I can just imagine people coming in my office, wondering about the odor. I love the smell of raw fleece. The best part is opening up the package and have all that fleecey goodness explode out of the box. I did that yesterday but didn't have a chance to look through the fleece until tonight. It was a Guild meeting tonight and if it wasn't for the fact that we had a special speaker, I might have decided to stay home to play.


Not sure if I can fit this all back in the box.

The washed sample came out really nice and fluffy. No plans for the fleece yet except wash it this weekend.

I love the colour but that's going to be a lot of grey wool. I might dye some of it. That's what I love about raw fleece...unlimited potential. You can change something at any stage of preparation and that will change your final product.

Thankful for:
1. Kindness of strangers - a very nice bunch of people let me in the line up ahead of them at Costco. The amazing thing was that it was three different groups of shoppers...each with a very full buggy.
2. The person who left a box of Ferrero Roche on my desk. :) Chocolate is always appreciated.
3. Snowdrops in the front garden have started to open.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

I'm so ready for Spring!

It's snowing again. It's not supposed to happen here. I can't believe I was actually wishing for rain. Enough already!

These past three weeks have been just a blur to me. Life at work is always insane at this time of the year. Made worse by the fact that now it's my department and I feel, well, a bit more responsible for things. I have to remember to take deep breaths and fondle more fibrey stuff.

The poor old grey cardigan is still languishing in the knitting bag. I looked at the cabled shoulders yesterday and just couldn't find the energy to work on it. But I did find the energy to start a new sweater...Bianca's Jacket from Interweave Knits - Fall 2006. This is a pattern that's tailored-made for knitting in one piece.

On the loom, I have some silk boucle as the warp. In hindsight, I probably should have used the boucle as an interest yarn - as Rusty suggested, rather than for the whole warp. (Next time, I'll email you first.) It did seemed like a good idea at the time. Another reason not to do things when you're tired.

No luck in finding my missing charts for the shawl. I have the swatch sample so I guess I can rechart the pattern from that. Not looking forward to this at all.