By Tara, on March 13th, 2009% The LocalSpun series is my attempt to share the process from fiber (on the animal) to finished yarn. Each is just a glimpse into a moment in the life of yarn and yarnmaker.
Remember these shy little Jacob’s from Rammings Farm?
Well, I bought one of their fleeces, brought it home and stretched it out on an old clean sheet in the middle of my living room (too cold outside!)
I was pretty amazed at how clean this fleece felt. Unlike the Coopworth, it wasn’t greasy at all ! In fact, it didn’t seem to have any lanolin! Since it didn’t feel sticky, I decided to test out washing it in just water and salt – no soap!
I split up the fleece into 3 different pots for washing. The pots were filled up with water and placed on the stove (I’d do this in my washer, . . . → Read More: LocalSpun – Fleece Transformation
By Tara, on March 3rd, 2009% Remember the cashmere from Rammings farm?
Jennifer had his fiber blended with a little wool (also from her flock) and it turned out to be a lovely, tweedy gray with just hints of brown.
This color was too rich to dye or card, so I left it natural and spun it with bright colors.
Prairie Sunset is cashmere spun with Hobbledehoy’s Kombucha batt, a fun mix of merino, ecospun and sparkle.
Silver Lining is cashmere spun with handdyed mill-ends (available in the Boutique tomorrow today!)
I have a smidge of cashmere left…what do you think I should do with it? Should I spin it with another color or try dyeing or carding it?
(want to read more about fiber? Check out Alpaca Girl’s Fiber Friday Carnival!)
. . . → Read More: Local Cashmere
By Tara, on December 19th, 2008% All the goodness of Localspun yarn & fibers, straight to your mailbox! . . . → Read More: Introducing: LocalSpun Fiber and Yarn Club
By Tara, on November 3rd, 2008% Most everyone knows that fabric comes from yarn or thread which comes from cotton, sheep or synthetics. But how does it really GET there? From farm to cloth? In the past few weeks, I’ve worked through and documented the process. You can read them all here. Today’s the last step: The Spinning.
Finally! The exciting part – turning fluff into yarn! Every time I’ve posted a video about the process of turning this fleece into yarn, I get the question, “But how do you SPIN it?”. Well, here’s the answer. In this video I show I how I spin one of the LocalSpun batts into a Local Spun Yarn:
The finished yarn looks like this, all soft and squooshy:
This yarn is Hilly Bourn and is available here. The name (and all of those in this line) are inspired by the John Keats’s poem “To Autumn”. I . . . → Read More: How to spin from a batt
By Tara, on October 31st, 2008% Created from one local fleece, the LocalSpun line celebrates the unique properties of a breed while honoring the sheep that produced it. I’ve visited the farm, washed the fleece and laid it out in the sun to dry. The line includes dyed locks, handcarded batts and handspun yarns. Every item is one of a kind and once sold, can never be recreated.
Today the batts are in the Boutique, with locks to follow this weekend and handspun yarns on Monday (along with a video showing how I spin these batts here on the blog).
The names for these batts are inspired by John Keats’s poem “To Autumn”. It’s much too long to include in it’s entirety in the shop descriptions, so I’d like to share it here, along with the batts inspired by it. Serendipitously, today is Keats‘s birthday!
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close . . . → Read More: Introducing: Local Spun Batts
By Tara, on October 24th, 2008% The LocalSpun series is my attempt to share the process from fiber (on the animal) to finished yarn. Each is just a glimpse into a moment in the life of yarn and yarnmaker.
Most everyone knows that fabric comes from yarn or thread which comes from cotton, sheep or synthetics. But how does it really GET there? From farm to cloth? In the next few week’s I’ll be working through and documenting this process. Today: The Blending.
The one question I seem to get most often when doing spinning demonstrations is “How do you get the wool like…that” with a gesture to the roving I’m holding in my hand. Most everyone understands that the wool comes from sheep and the fleece gets washed and dyed…but what takes it from a pile of fiber to the fluffy batt in my hands?
The fiber can be combed or carded to . . . → Read More: Life of Yarn – Carding
By Tara, on October 3rd, 2008% The LocalSpun series is my attempt to share the process from fiber (on the animal) to finished yarn. Each is just a glimpse into a moment in the life of yarn and yarnmaker.
Most everyone knows that fabric comes from yarn or thread which comes from cotton, sheep or synthetics. But how does it really GET there? From farm to cloth? In the next few week’s I’ll be working through and documenting this process. Today: The Color
After the fleece is clean and dry (although, really, I don’t see why it needs to be dry), I dye the fiber. This is hardly the only way to do it. In fact, it’s time for a digression on the creativity of the process.
There are 1000s different way to move fiber from animal to yarn. I’ve been showing how I did it, for this one fleece. If you’re following along, planning . . . → Read More: Life of Yarn – Dyeing
By Tara, on September 26th, 2008% The Localspun series is my attempt to share the process from fiber (on the animal) to finished yarn. Each is just a glimpse into a moment in the life of yarn and yarnmaker. Most everyone knows that fabric comes from yarn or thread which comes from cotton, sheep or synthetics. But how does it really GET there? From farm to cloth? In the next few week’s I’ll be working through and documenting this process. Today: The Fleece.
I purchased the fleece from Hobby Knob Farm, during my last farm visit.
It’s a Coopworth, shorn just last March from one of Elizabeth’s herd. It’s around 7 lbs and I loved the locks, even dirty:
When I was ready to wash it, I spread it out on my back “porch”. My cat was fascinated:
I was a little nervous I’d ruin it, so I gathered all the bits around the edges that . . . → Read More: Life of Yarn – Washing the Fleece
By Tara, on September 19th, 2008% The Life of Yarn series is my attempt to share the process from fiber (on the animal) to finished yarn. Each is just a glimpse into a moment in the life of yarn and yarnmaker.
Most everyone knows that fabric comes from yarn or thread which comes from cotton, sheep or synthetics. But how does it really GET there? From farm to cloth? In the next few week’s I’ll be working through and documenting this process. Today: On the Farm.
Specifically Hobby Knob Farm in Weaversville, NC. This is one of the first farms I visited in my search for local wool and it continues to be my favorite sheep farm. Elizabeth is always generous with her time and information. That’s her (and my mom) you can hear in the videos. The sheep on this farm are bred for their fiber and conservancy. The flock includes colored Romney . . . → Read More: Life of Yarn – at the farm
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