In which we make up for lost time

I've spun kind of a lot of yarn since the last time I walked away from my wheel long enough to upload some pictures. Even though I switch fibers just about every time I finish a project, I'm definitely getting better at spinning in general. I experimented with acid dye, as well. I'll need much more practice at that.

I wanted to put these in some kind of chronological order, but I'm a little brain dead and I can't remember what I made right after the soy. I'm thinking it was the squishy white wool that wheel-lady gave me.



Sorry, the finished product is apparently the only picture I have of that one. It was surprisingly easy to spin, considering it was the 3rd or 4th thing I ever made. The wool was in a huge ball, and had been carded very thoroughly. The wool itself was full of lanolin. By the time I would get done with a bobbin of this wool, my hands would literally be dripping with oil. I gave it a few extra soaks after I was finished.


Shortly after that, I took a trip downstate and stopped at every farm that might sell wool along the way. I got some good stuff, but mostly I bought a bunch of very un-processed wool. It had been washed, but that's about it. I thought it would be neat to start a skein of wool from the beginning. Plus, they kept handing me garbage bags full of the stuff. It'll take me a while to get through it all. Here's a bag full of messy wool:



They had pretty much every natural color variation you can imagine, and I think I bought a bag of everything. I did spin a skein of the yarn in the bag above, but it's related to the unfortunate acid dye story so I'll save that for a later post. I cleaned and carded some of the black and dark brown wool and spun up a skein of that too:



And a close up. It's actually kind of pretty, with the subtle color variation - knowing that I had nothing to do with it. This was all the sheep.