Adventures of the Fiberdog

Contents: Washing Picking, carding and dizzing Dyeing Spinning It is no secret most of my fibers and yarns in my shop have not only been dyed and spun by me, but also processed by me. It is a lot of work, but I just love it. I love to see the transformation from raw and dirty fleece to wonderful yarn. So I was thinking: maybe someone else would love to see that transformation! And here we are now, writing/reading this blog post. I will take you along on the journey of about 250g raw fleece, from start to end. Please note, this is the way I do this. There are many different methods for cleaning raw fibers out there and everybody has their own special recipe. This works for me and I think it is a good starting point, as you don't need any special equipment or soaps. Our 250g raw fleece at the beginning This particular fleece is from a Corriedale cross. The whole fleece is almost 13 lbs, the locks are around three inches long. And it is so greasy! Lots of lanolin in...

There are multiple ways to start and finish your weaving project and hemstitching is one of them. Again there are multiple methods for this and a ton of instructions online, but I still feel people get easily confused by this and thus don't even try hemstitching. It is really not that difficult though and in my opinion a great finish. So here are my (hopefully) simple instructions for hemstitching your weaving project. My personal guideline is: over (the warp threads) under (under the warp threads) through (through the loop) through  (through the fabric)   Let's go through this step by step: When you first start weaving, leave yourself a nice long tail , about four times the width of your project. Forgot to do this? Don't panic! I find you can usually pull out the first few rows of weft by gently pulling down one row of weft and gently tugging at the edge until the weft row comes free. Thread the tail on a tapestry needle and then go over  a couple of warp threads. Mak...

Years ago I was on a small wool market in Germany. As always I was looking for fiber to spin. I found a shepherd, who had unprocessed fleeces from his sheep for sale. However, none of them really called to me. I was about to turn away, when an unmarked fleece caught my eye. It was perfect for me! So I talked to the shepherd and asked about the price. He hesitated. "It is not for sale. It is from my favorite ram, who passed recently. He was a special boy.", he told me. That was of course sad for me, but I understood. Some things are just too special to sell. So we talked a little bit. About the ram, sheep and pets in general. I don't know what made him change his mind, but in the end he sold me the fleece (and for a very fair price, too). He had one condition though: I had to send him pictures of the finished product. Naturally I agreed and went home with this very special fleece. A special fleece  Preparing the fiber and spinning the yarn One thing I...

Dog hair: trash or valuable resource?    As you may or may not know, rough collies have a LOT of undercoat and now and then they are shedding it. If you brush your collie thoroughly, you almost get a second collie in undercoat. For years I watched my mother (a breeder of rough collies) throw away these huge amounts of hair, not thinking anything of it. And then I learned how to spin. I had already experimented with different types of fibers and I was curious what was possible. So one day I literally saved a handful of undercoat (from the lovely boy Lines) from the trash and took them home with me. My mother thought it was weird, but didn’t say anything. I experimented with the fiber and found out it was actually very spinnable. Very fine, lovely staple length. And the thought of knowing the donor of my spinning fiber from puppy on made me enjoy the spinning process even more. Next time I talked to my mother, I asked her to save all the brushings from her dogs ...