Saturday, November 7, 2009

Spin In

I recently attended the Wisconsin Spin In in West Bend. I went with my Mom, Dad, and my good friend Kate. Sadly, Zachary had to work that day. As a newbie to all things fiber, I wanted to see all the neat things you can do with fiber. Get a little inspiration. Besides eyeing all the beautiful yarns, rovings, spinning, felting, etc, we took in the shearing demo. I don't know if we will ever try to shear our own sheep, but this guy made it look easy. But then again, he has like over 20 years of experience and can get a sheep sheared under 2 minutes. He was shearing Icelandics. That raw fleece was gorgeous. Our sheep, Fred, is half Icelandic and Shetland.
The attendants asked a lot of questions and I took a lot of notes. Besides the actual shearing, I learned how to care for your sheep to obtain the optimal fleece before it is shearing time. I noted a few tips that should make our next shearing higher quality. I do wish I didn't have Ricky and Fred's wool carded and blended together this summer, as their wool are really different from each other, besides being the same color. Ricky is a Border Leicester. Oh well, it will still be good to learn the art with.
Isn't this wall of sock yarn delightful?? This hand painted yarn is from Happy Hands Yarn. She has a talent for making wonderful colorways. Kate picked up some sock yarn, as she has quickly graduated from scarfs and hats and onto socks. I was very tempted to get a bunch of sock yarn and start sock knitting, but I decided against it and actually make a few simpler projects first before I jump into that realm. It might be better to start with a scarf or two, and then a hat and then maybe those delightful socks...

2 comments:

Unknown said...

What a great event and those yarns are yummmy!

Liz said...

Looked like a lot of fun Jennifer. Glad you've got some nice wool off your two boys. Hope they're behaving themselves and not getting out. I'm just writing a new blog post. Part of it will concern Ricky and Fred's ovine cousins here in NZ. It happened on Sunday (NZ Time). Hope you're not too cold with the winter coming on again. Where has the year gone!

Hugs
Liz