YOP 2020-2021 Week 4/52

~ Elliementalist

Key
Have the Supplies for 🧶
WIP 💜
Finished ⭐️
Frogged 🐸
Hybernating 😴
Added during the year 🦄

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Knitting

⭐️ Handspun Swatch Scarf  (started previous YOP year) I am reposting this finished object because I have now done the indepth post about it which you can find here!

Jumpers

🧶💜My Little Pony Festive Cheer Cardigan. The pattern is Festive Cheer by Pat Menchini. I am not counting this as a new add since I had to in my Spinning plans I am just considering this moved from the spinning to the knitting section. I have just finished the back of the cardigan and I am planning on starting on one of the front sections today. Fingers crossed I have enough yarn. The pattern said I would need 350 grams of DK and I spun 400g but I do want to make the sleeves a bit longer.

I pinned it to the carpet for the photo because it’s quite curly.

Spinning

🧶 💜Purple Jumper 500g of fibre. I have been working quite solidly on this project. I am onto the last 78g of singles and then I can finish plying it all. Here is a cute poicture of Jack getting invloved in the project when I was weighing things.

🦄I have absolutly no idea what section to put this under, maybe spinning. But I feel like this deserves to be mentioned! I might have bought some raw fleece. 😅On Thursday night I joined my local Spinning and Weaver’s guild on Facebook. Then on Friday morning I was looking at their page and I saw that a local sheep owner was getting rid of some fleece. I was planning to just get 1 or maybe 2 if they were small since this would be my very first time processing raw fleece. But her price was so good and Husband was a bad encouragement so I landed up with 4 🤣 well 3.5 because shetalands are tiny! So on Saturday we took a drive to her farm and bought the fleeces. I got one Zwartbles, one Cheviot, one Ryeland x Shetland, and one Shetland. Her Sheep were so friendly and came running to the gate for pets and scratches when she called them. So did Mr Boar who is honestly the biggest pig I have ever seen in my life.

Sunday turned out to be pretty good weather. This year the Scottish summer has been decidedly wet, at least where I live, so I decided to skirt my fleece while the sun was shining. I wanted to make some sort of pun with making hay while the sun shines but it’s just not coming to me. Anyway that is the reason that this post is late! I washed the small shetland after I skirted it and the sun + the wind ment that I have probably cut off 12-24 hours off the dry time which I am super happy about! Fleece has to be super duper dry before you pack it away.

I do not plan to dye any of the fleece before or after spinning it as I just LOVE LOVE LOVE the natural fibre. I am hoping to maybe get a jumper out of each excluding the tiny shetland but I will have to see how much is left after skirting and washing and combing it.

Oh I also still need to get some combs! Husband is thinking of making some rudimentary ones for me with wood and nails. I will definately be doing a dedicated series of posts on the cleaning and processing of these fleece as well as the spinning. And if husband makes the combs I might make a post about that too depending on how sucessfull that endevour is.

I hope that you have been having a wonderful craft week!
Peace and Love
Ellie

Published by Elliementalist

I love doing arts and crafts, I also enjoy playing computer games as well as gardening and spending time with my cats.

22 thoughts on “YOP 2020-2021 Week 4/52”

  4. Congratulations on the fleece….your Jack looks like one of our outdoor cats…named Outdoor Cat or OC…LOL…..we have 3 of them and then our Bella is inside……It’s always fun to see someone using the yarn they have spun…

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  11. Thank you so much for your lovely compliment on my spinning and jumper 😀

    I am also using fairy liquid and it does seem to be doing the job well. I was also thinking about trying dog combs but then my husband said he thinks he could make some combs out of wood and nails so I will see how that works. If it doesn’t work out then I will definitely speak to my guild. 😀 thank you that is a great suggestion. I didn’t even think to check if they rent stuff out.

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  12. skirting takes patience and it is worth it all in the end to say you took a fleece and ended up with a garment. well done on your new fleeces – hours of spinning fun I think.

    Liked by 1 person

  13. Yes, please, do make a series of posts about the processing of the fleece. I’m hopeless at spinning but I find the process of yarn-making from sheep to skein so interesting, I’d love to read more about everything involved.

    Liked by 1 person

  14. The colors in your Little Pony cardigan are gorgeous. It’s so fun seeing how the colors in a skein or hank end up when they’re knitted or crocheted. Have fun with all that fleece! Yay, you for having such an enabling hubby. 🙂

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  15. What a wonderful colour on that fleece? I can’t wait to see you process that. The cardigan looks lovely and I love the purple you are spinning.

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  18. Your hand spun and the jumper section are so lovely. Very much my colours and such a consistent spin. Congratulations on your new fleeces. I’ve been watching your Instagram posts over the weekend so could see you had your hands full.
    I have only ever bought one fleece and I must say it is a challenge in the Scottish weather to process it. I ended up using big plastic garden trugs in the garage and drying it in the greenhouse over many weeks. Fairy liquid worked best, we use Ecover normally and that wasn’t up to getting lanolin out. It is hard work but the sense of achievement will be great. Because I only had the one fleece I used metal dog combs to start but then switched to my hackle and that was so much easier. It is worth checking with your Guild members to see if anyone has any combs they are looking to sell, because as members get older they can find them too heavy and switch to smaller combs. Also your Guild may have items you can rent, ours does where you can rent items for 3 months. Also on Ravelry there’s some UK spinning groups that have people selling 2nd hand ones, although they do hold their value quite well. Good luck with the rest and fingers crossed we look to be getting some warmer drier weather at the end of this week.

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  22. When I was learning to spin {I took classes but do not spin!!} I loved spinning fiber in the raw. I know most do not like the grease. It certainly takes all day to clean a fleece and so nice to have one that is local

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