A Blip on the Radar: Sheep-to-Shawl

Sunday, July 09, 2006

Sheep-to-Shawl

My first "outing" on my own after my surgery was to the Spindrifters spinners guild meeting. They started talking about doing a Sheep-to-Shawl during the Skagit Highland Games, (which happened this weekend) and did anyone have a fleece that they could donate - hmmm, I thought.......1. We have LOTS of fleeces
2. What a better way to get our fleece in the hands of lots of people, and
3. What better fleece for a Sheep-to-Shawl for a Scottish Highland Games than a Shetland Sheep fleece?

This is Susie - John picked her fleece from last fall (the one she is wearing in this picture, as a matter of fact) and the guild VP came out and picked it up and washed it & dried it and here's what happened today:

First the washed & dried fleece is "picked" by pulling out misc. hay & other "stuff" that doesn't belong - picking is tedious work and probably took about as much time as anything

Then the wool is carded or combed. These ladies are using a drum carder which is a heck of a lot easier than doing it by hand, that 's for sure. What you can't see (because it is moving) is the little teeth on the round barrel - they "brush" the wool all in the same direction and you end up with wonderful fluffy little bats of wool called roving.

I stole this line from my friend Nancy K. - she has a wonderful blog called "A Shepherds Voice" (http://shepherdsvoice.blogspot.com/) with wonderful stories and pictures of her spotted sheep. Anyhow - People got a big kick out of my sign.

Anyhow back to the wool's journey - LET THE

SPINNING BEGIN!

And, as you can see, there were a lot of spinners spinning!

& the balls of yarn went down the line to the weaver...

Who is weaving a lovely triangle shawl - Everyone who took part in the process gets a chance at winning it - now, that would be cool. She wasn't going to be able to finish it today, but hopefully the finished product will be at the next meeting so I can get a picture of it for you.