Of course there is no reason why you can’t do that … this is the Fiber Arts … there are no rules!!
The horse is looking good!
Turned last batch to rolag, next batch washed and drying
A beautiful sight!
Almost dry from yesterday’s batch. Decided to wash another batch since it’s sunny and low humidity today.
Ordered more felting needles from Felting Alive. Last time I got a surprise free extra needle and this time, I got a surprise free purple fiber. IDK what it’s made of.
Oopsies, IDK why it looks blue in the picture…
VM is in it, so guessing it’s something natural.
Figured it out, it’s American wool from mix breed sheep, medium-fine & short-fibered.
Purple often photographs blue.
You’re getting quite the felting needle collection!! Guess now you’re armed and dangerous … mostly to yourself OUCH!
Decided to wash the rest of it.
Have you ever heard of cleaning your wool using the fermented suint method?? It works quite well!
(Deeper into the rabbit hole we go!!)
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I found the wool samples!
It’s extra nice, because I lost Twinkle-Toes in early August and didn’t have any of her wool. But now I do! It is in the baggy longways from left to right, since it’s much longer than Babydoll wool is.
I got 7 new ewes after I collected these, so I will collect and send those off next year, as some of them need to work on growing better fleece and all are already sheared, so nothing to take yet.
3 black at top are from my rams, rest the ewes. Surry wool has sooooo much lanolin in there! =0 Billy wool is brown to greyblue in the pic, but he is still changing colors and he’s more of a pale greyyellow mix now.
I knew I didn’t mail them out yet! I haven’t even chosen which company I will send them to. Filling out their ID cards and then I’ll pick a co and send it off tomorrow!
The new forum means most of my past picture posts are gone…sorry, will try to readd them as I have time.
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No, I haven’t.
But all my wool is heavy in lanolin, so I would still have to do a good amount of soaking and washing with soap after several plain soaks to get dirt out. I have no place in the house to keep a smelly water box and outdoors the water will get over 95F in no time with nights dropping into the 60s and the site said that wasn’t good.
This thread, if you haven’t noticed by now, has turned into a general thread so I’m not swamping the board with random bits.
I lost an ewe in early August and since I found the wool samples, I now have a tiny bit of her wool! It’s 5in long, maybe more, she was a Cheviot. Going to carefully wash it, gently brush it and then store it away, since I won’t try to comb it! Have only been combing short stuff and don’t want to screw up the only bit of long wool I have.
Hate the new forum layout, can’t add pictures and it’s not working right to add a picture link.
Oh, I think I sort of figured out how to card the short wool!
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It’s taking all of us a while to adapt to the new forum. We’ll get there.
Glad you’ve figured out the carding for the short wool. You seem to be making fantastic progress.
Have you tried the upload icon (the bar with the upward pointing arrow above the window for text replies)? Does that help for posting photos?
Ohh, the ‘preview’ window thing was in the way. Thanks!
Brushed it out.
Cheviots are actually white, not the off-white color Babydolls come in. Makes it look soooo clean and crisp!
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The groove was way too narrow, so I made it larger!
Also bent the hook on the top, yarn too easily popped out.
I really shouldn’t use this wool to spin with, it’s just too rough. Hoping their wool grows in softer after a year in my care. Have 2 other ewes who had super rough wool and now have better wool, still not great, but an improvement.
Those are adorable and look like your very sweet babydoll sheep.
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