Icelandic chocolate fleece and more

I know what you've been thinking. Where is she? She just doesn't blog as much anymore.

It's not you.
It's me. (really!)

I've been having a busy work week. When I wasn't busy, I wasn't breathing all that well, because I have asthma and am allergic to fall. Well, I'm allergic to leaf mold, I think. So, with the help of all my medicine and some caffeine (opens up those lungs) and a few attacks, I'm making it through..it's just been a rough season for me. I'm probably the only person in Winnipeg who wishes the unusual warm weather would end with a nice long frosty period to get rid of that mold!

Anyhow, first, there's the fleece. Here's a knitted swatch of roughly what I'm aiming for...my mom wants yarn between 4-5 sts. This is what I'm aiming for. Since that color doesn't shine there, here is what it looks like on a bobbin--For those who are spinners, I'm spinning this differently than my "usual." The usual part? I take a lock of the fleece out of the pillow case, tease it a bit, taking care not to separate the thel and tog (the hairy part and the soft undercoat of a primitive dual coat fleece like Icelandic) and spin it. The unusual part is that I'm spinning this to make a very firm (even hard) yarn. My dad wears the heck out of his sweaters (just like me, I inherited that!) and I want this to wear well.

While spinning the first bobbin, I've found quite a few short bits of fiber. For some fleeces, this would indicate that the shearer made a lot of second cuts, which isn't a good thing. (while shearing, she'd miss a bit and go back to cut it off the sheep in a second pass.) However, some Icelandic sheep still "roo", which means there is a natural break in their fleece. This is leftover from long, long ago--hundreds, if not thousands of years ago-- when people didn't shear sheep but rather plucked fleece from the sheep (and from bushes) as the sheep shed its fleece. While sheep have now been bred for a long time to avoid this, some primitive breeds still roo, and a good shearer has to shear the sheep right above that break point. That's an interesting part of the fleece and I wish I had a class to show it to!

These bits are not something I want to include, they will automatically pill, so I just pull them out as I'm teasing and spinning the fleece. This might make good stuffing, but otherwise, it's not useful for much else.

When the bobbin is mostly full, I like to use a ball winder to make a center pull ball. I tuck a bit of stiff paper or cardboard around the inside strand of yarn. When I'm ready to ply this (this will be a 2 ply yarn), I will push out the paper, pop my thumb inside the ball, and ply from both ends of the ball. This is my preferred way to ply, and I like to pile up the balls of singles so I ply a whole lot of yarn at once.

I also just dyed a handknitted sweater--more on that later.

OK, now, that was my planned blog post. Then I found out:
Guido over at It's a purl, man has posted our interview. Please check out his podcast if you're interested!

Also, today there was a little promotional email that went out about Knit Green. Then, next thing I knew, I looked over at the book's listing on Amazon and it said:

#2>Books>Home & Garden>Crafts & Hobbies>Knitting

That means, for this brief period of time, Knit Green is the second best selling knitting book on Amazon. Whoa.

Good thing I was sitting down.

So, over all, a very nice day. I'm off to cook some lamb for dinner. Oh, did I mention we got our freezer lamb from Seine River Shepherds this week? Like I said...busy week...

A spinning and knitting friend is coming for a visit starting tomorrow. I'll try to get back over here after her visit. Whew! big times around here!

Newsflash

We have heat again as of about 8pm tonight.

I feel as if my brain has just been turned back on. 45F (around 8C) is not cold outside. It is pretty darn cold inside, though. I became a not-nice person who alternately baked a lot (corn bread, whole wheat bread, apple pie, fudge brownie pie and stew, all since Thursday) and became dumb with cold and fatigue. Outside felt warm. Inside felt too cold to do anything of much use. Hopefully I'll be twice as productive now that the heat is working. I'll need to be, since it cost us several thousand dollars to fix!

Regular blog posting may commence again soon. In the meanwhile, check out this great review of Knit Green (scroll down, it's the second book reviewed.) I also got to speak with Guido Stein of the It's a Purl, Man podcast. I think he'll be posting that interview later this week.

I am off to enjoy sleeping in a warm house. It's amazing how this is such a novelty, but after over a week without heat? Well, it's a novelty!