Friday, January 25, 2013

Betsy's Fleece

I've been working through some of last season's fleeces as it will be shearing time before we realize it.  I pulled out Betsy's fleece.  She is one of the Sofa Sisters (so named because the twins were grossly obese when we adopted them) and is a Border Leicester X Cotswold with lovely curls.  Here is a nice picture of Betsy with her twin sister, Bitsy, that I took last year.

So here is how I spent my week:
Nice dirty locks.  Lots of mud but almost no VM or second cuts.
Ben helping, or supervising, or watching to see what the donkeys out front are doing.
A 2 oz. sample of those lovely curls.
Soaking away some of the mud in a warm bubble bath.
First batch of dyeing.
A good rinse.
Final rinse.
And I have no picture of the dry fiber yet as we have a sort of sleety frozen rain falling now but you can trust me when I say I am tickled with the results.

4 comments:

  1. Wow! Looks beautiful! Can't wait to see the final dry fiber! Congrats on seeing the process through from start to finish! I enjoy seeing your process photos.

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    1. Thanks much! I know there are mills I can send things off to, etc. but I just love the work of it all. We're in a bit of an icy yucky situation now but I hope to get a good picture before the weekend is out.

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  2. Beautiful fiber and lovely colors! I love those gals and the curls!

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    1. I'll tell them that when I go out to gather eggs later today. I'm sure they will appreciate your kind regards ;-)

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