From The Way Back Machine

Back in 2005 I sent our Jacob fleeces off to be made into quilt batting and kept the darkest batt for myself thinking I'd get a quilt made to match our barn quilt.  Fast forward to 2019 and I've long since given up hoping for a custom quilt and realized I could send that batt back to the mill and have it re-run as roving and spin it into yarn.  

The five sheep in that dark yarn are sadly long gone.  They were our original five Jacobs from Indiana - Jester, Jacob, Joshua, Elizabeth and Crazy Esther.  That yarn is a treasure.  Part of our history.

When I found a sweater pattern I liked and saw that I needed a contrast color I dug through my stash of handspun and found the perfect light gray.  Coincidentally (or not) it was a blend of Emily, our sixth Jacob and Annabelly, her first lamb.  This too is a treasure.

This sweater.  So much history between those sheep and the sheep that followed them.  

Maisie scritches :-).

I love Short Round's sweet face.  One of our newest sheep looking at the wool of our oldest sheep...or the food scoop ;-).

 

Wovember Day 24. Stash

I've decided I need a new sweater.  While I really don't mind wearing any of my handknit sweaters out to the barn, the sweaters I reach for the most are Baaxter and B. Willard - the simple, dark colored pullovers.  I'd wear Ford too, but that's 20's favorite sweater ;-).  

I was also looking for a simple, almost mindless evening knitting project and a simple sweater definitely meets that criteria...until I mess up something ;-).  I have Jared's yarn set aside for the Iknitarod in March, but who wants to wait that long!

Remember the Jacob yarn I spun for the Tour de Fleece a couple of years ago?  It would be perfect for a cozy warm barn sweater.  I then searched Ravelry for a new pattern and picked the Sophiasburgh sweater by Sam Lamb.  Just enough color to keep things interesting and it has an interesting design feature I want to try.

I was sure I had something in the yarn stash that would work for the patterning and I did.  I could tell it was Jacob, but I couldn't remember which sheep it was.  I had a couple guesses, but unfortunately I hadn't tagged it.  I scrolled back through the blog and found it under a Spinzilla post from 2015.  

To refresh your memory, the dark Jacob yarn was from our very first five Jacob sheep.  I think it was a 2005 shearing.  It had originally been processed by Ohio Valley Natural Fibers as quilt batting, but when it became obvious I was never going to get a quilt made, I had them re-run it as roving.

The light gray? It's a blend of Emily and Annabelly, our very next two Jacobs!  Nothing could be more perfect.  

The historical significance of these yarns is (inspiring/heartwarming/exciting....?).  I'm really looking forward to spending some time with seven of my most favorite Jacob sheep ever and wearing the finished sweater while working around our present day flock.

Stash for the win!

The Start Of The 2019 Tour De Fleece

As I posted last week, our team captain this year is Maisie.  She's let it go to her head just a little, but so far, so good...unless something has happened late today and I haven't heard yet.  I happen to have a small sheep in my "inside flock" that reminds me of Maisie, so I've picked her to be my spinning mascot.

She's wearing a warm jacket because I have turned the air conditioner in the Wool House on high :-o.

I'm spinning something pretty neat this year.  17 years ago, when I was just getting started with our wool flock, we were gifted five Jacob sheep from a kind shepherdess in Indiana.  I really didn't know what to do with So Much Wool (hahahahaha), so I had some processed into roving and some into quilt batts.  

I think I must have divided up the black and white wools because I remember having some light gray batts and one dark one that I kept for myself in hopes I could find someone to make a real quilt from our barn quilt. Sigh...

You know...I thought this spring...rather than just sitting in the loft, that dark batt could be re-run as roving.  Roving from our very first five Jacob sheep.  Wouldn't that be neat?  Like an historical do-over now that I'm a better spinner...and those sheep are no longer with us.

This year for the Tour I'm spinning Elizabeth, Esther, Jester, Joshua and Jacob :-).  There are 2.5 pounds of dark gray roving.  I'd like to spin all of that, but I'm off to a slow start, so I may not be able to reach that goal...but I'm going to try.

So what is Mini Maisie looking at in the picture above?

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Posting this here so I can post it to the blog. It will all make more sense in a bit 😉. #tdf2019 #jacobsheep

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady) on Jul 7, 2019 at 7:03pm PDT

The legacy of those five Jacobs :-).

And we're off!

Grays

I completed Clue 2 for the Hole and Sons Tales of Purbeck MKAL (mystery knitalong) on Saturday. Don't get too excited.  It was a short clue ;-).  I'm approaching the end of my white yarn and enjoying the pattern so I know I'm going to finish the shawl and therefore need more yarn. Since I'm ahead of schedule with the knitting, early Sunday morning was a perfect time to do some spinning.

I'd found a small bundle of light gray core roving in my stash.  Core roving is two colors, one wrapped around the other.  This particular batch was medium gray core with white wrapped around the outside.  When you spin it the yarn looks almost tweedy.  Hmmm, that might be a nice transition from the white yarn into the medium gray yarn.

Drop spindles are a perfect tool for samples like this.  I keep a spindle (or two, maybe three ;-) at the house for just such instant gratification.  Golding spindles are my favorite and this beautiful swan spindle (and sheep holder/stand - look closely) was a gift from a special friend.  I've been dying to give it a whirl.

Nothing says class like spinning with a fancy spindle...and then skeining your yarn around a cardboard box ;-).

The other option I found in my stash was a few ounces of dark gray Jacob roving.  I'm trying to remember when I did the three colors of roving - light, medium and dark gray.  It's been awhile.  If I had to guess, this would be Elizabeth, Jester, Joshua, Crazy Esther and maybe Emily and Annabelly.

Here are the two new color choices in tiny skeins.  The small ball of gray is the Jester yarn I already have picked out.  The light gray core roving on the right - now this is kind of odd - is a completely different gray from the other grays next to it.  Not that the other grays are brown exactly, but there is a hint of a muted color in there that is missing in the light gray.  Pretty, but not for this project.

So here is the color plan.  The gray mini skein is the same yarn from the ball above, just re-skeined. I'm going to switch over to the medium gray next, maybe with the next clue, and then finish with the dark gray. Actually, I'm toying with finishing the very end with a red/brown edge.  Any guesses as to why?

Eli, displaying his grays.

Some phone shots from later in the day.  Thanks to another good friend who had come over to pick up half of Woody's fleece and ended up giving me a spinning lesson (this is quite a racket I have going on here :-D) I have nearly a full bobbin of (hopefully) perfectly matching yarn to ply up today. I was planning on spreading mulch, but gee, it's raining ;-).

Liddy prefers driveway grass.  Well, Liddy prefers Cheerios, corn chips, potato chips, corn bread...and now carrots!  That being said, we don't have another sheep on this farm that we could pay to weed eat.  She's a keeper!

And when she gets tired, she sits down with the rest of the dogs ;-).