Sunday, January 8, 2012

Spinning Finally

Combing with the English Wool Combs.
See the piles of combed wool on the desk?
A few weeks ago Max brought my spinning wheel up here from Memphis. It sat in a corner and glared at me for a while. So I finally gave in and got out the Murphy's Oil Soap out and cleaned it up. Then it sat in the corner and glared at me wanting to be used.

There was only one problem. Max brought me a bin of fiber to spin, only he brought me unprocessed wool and no tools with which to process it. So the wheel got to sit and glare at me for a few more weeks until Max's next visit when he brought me the fleece I wanted to work on and my English wool combs to process the fleece.

The fleece is a gorgeous chocolate one from a  Corriedale sheep named Peaches. I got it from Martha at Coneflower Farms in Michigan before she went out of business. Raising animals for wool is so intensive that most don't stay in it for long.

So now I have the fleece and the combs, but the wheel had to pout for a few more days until I could get some wool washed, dried and combed. Finally, however, its day came. I've been spinning for the last few days and thoroughly enjoying it. It's the first spinning I've done in over two years.

Me spinning in my cluttered corner.
The thread is spinning up brown with a gray hint to it. I'm thinking it would work very well woven into material for winter curtains for this den that gets so cold in the winter. The den is lovely, but it used to be a breezeway between the house and the garage. It only has one heater vent and an electric heater in one wall. It has two brick walls on the ends of the house and garage and tongue-in-groove knotty pine on the long walls and ceiling. There are two smaller windows on the back wall and a picture window on the front wall looking out to the street. These are covered with Venetian blinds, and some curtains on them would make for a lot of cozy in the winter.