Combings

I have spent a lovely morning combing out some previously dyed fleece in order to spin some yarn for rug hooking. What else is there to do when there is still 6 inches of snow outside! The fleece in question is some Welsh Mule of which I managed to buy  3 fleeces from a local farmer last summer after one of his ewes decided to jump the fence and join my gang of sheep for breakfast. The Welsh Mule is a cross between a Bluefaced Leicester ram and a Welsh Mountain ewe and has a large fleece with a long, lustrous staple. It dyes wonderfully too! Here it is loaded onto the combs.

And here is the resultant puff.

After producing a couple of boxes of dyed puff I turned to one of my own fleeces from Hubert. His mum - who I also have - is a Shetland Icelandic cross but Huberts fleece is more like his Dads who was a black Wensleydale I believe. His fleece is a lovely silvery grey and very shiny with a staple length of about 6 inches. It's perfect for combing and I'm hoping to make enough 2 ply yarn to weave a special blanket from it by the end of the year.

On the Louet Spring loom I've got a sample warp of a lovely overshot pattern it has taken me nearly 20 years to get around to weaving. It's a miniature version of Cat Track and Snail Trail taken from the Recipe Book by Mary Meigs Atwater. When I've woven this warp I have to make one more sample scarf for my friend Helen who runs My Fine Weaving Yarns. I've done a few scarves as samples for her to take to Wonderwool Wales next month. But there is lots of finge twisting to do first!

Finally here is a photo of handsome Hubert taken last July on one of those rare summer days.