Got my first fleeces to process, Gotland from a local artist. She’s not able to process them herself so it’d go unused and I got them very cheap. I think significantly too cheap actually, might have to give her some yarn or something to clear my conscience.
I got her card from an artist collectives store in town, she doesn’t actually sell wool but she sells skins (and ceramics) and I took the card on the off chance I felt like calling her. Didn’t think that would happen, but it did.
One sheep in particular was a darling, headbutting me when I stopped petting it. I got two big trash bags full of wool for 150SEK.
This was two days ago, I’ve been completely absorbed in wool since then. I’ve never washed raw wool so I tried some variations of two methods, with and without dish soap. I want to make a dark gray lanolin-rich and water resistant sweater, so the non-soap method is good for that. It gets most of the dirt and the worst of the lanolin (there’s too much friction when spinning if I leave it all in). I’m starting to plant dye so I’m separating out the lightest bits to dye, I really like the heathered look of dyed gray yarn. I don’t want the lanolin to prevent the dye from setting, so I need to keep experimenting with soap scours and washing the finished yarn until I know exactly how I want to process the light gray.
I got completely absorbed in this yesterday, which felt like a blessing. I’ve been too in my head lately and it felt good entering a flow state like that. I honestly don’t know where the time went. I’ve got way more wool than I’m ever gonna be able to use honestly. Yet I was stressed last night over separating out wool to use in the garden, something I legitimately need it for. It just feels like a crime to waste beautiful wool, I’m not used to having enough to spare like this. The black and dark gray is probably enough for at least 3-4 sweaters. The lighter I can use for dyeing until I get sick of it lol. I’ll probably end up selling it once it lands that I have more than enough gotland wool, though that might take a few years.
I didn’t know how to card properly when I started out apparently, but I’ve gotten better quickly through videos.
Today I’m gonna try different methods of spinning the lanolin rich dark gray yarn. The general idea is a tightly spun 4-ply yarn to make the finished sweater stiff and resistant to wear & tear. I think I want to spin the singles thicker and try at least one other plying method. Don’t think it’ll happen today but one day I’m gonna learn plying on the fly, I heard about it for the first time yesterday.
I might keep washing the light gray wool so I can start figuring out what the dyeing yarn should look like. The plan right now is to make it a lightly spun 2-ply. I think I want it pretty soft, and the tight spinning makes the finished yarn look darker and more uniform in color. I want the heathering to be as noticeable as possible.
