Spring's Gone Done Wore Me Out

Lately the focus has been on spinning and carding and carding and spinning in my fiber world. Remember that big box o' fiber I posted a picture of a few weeks ago? The Coopworth from Oregon? Well, I have news for you: that box is fucking BOTTOMLESS. I card and I card and I card and I spin and I spin and I spin and I have barely made a dent (although it's been some of the most even spinning I've done yet). My cards are starting to feel like budduh (butter) and the carding is going quicker, though still eye-stabbingly slow.

I've felt incredibly bored and uninspired on the knitting front, on top of feeling tired in general. School is picking up, so to destress I stole my wheel back from E. Behold, My First Tweed (TM):



To be 3-plied with two strands of this:



As a side note, I am incredibly INCREDIBLY allergic to this wool. Every time I get to spinning it my eyes tear up and swell in protest and I sneeze and cough. Maybe *that's* why I feel like hell? Those little felted bits are the worst. Next time I make a tweed I am going to have to figure out another way to achieve the same effect.

The merino roving of last post is spinning up like this:



The variation is a little more pronounced than I'd like (although you can't see that in this picture). I'm planning on two-plying it only because I am an idiot and didn't believe experienced spinners when they said to hold off on the merino because it would be frustrating. Well, guess what? It totally is. Switching from the Coopworth to the Merino is a big change and I always end up re-learning how to deal with those short little merino fibers. They just fly out of my hands and they're so soft that I can barely hold on to them in the first place.

The last thing I slated for this lazy entry was a look at the 10lb present that came in the mail on Wednesday:



All the way from Kathy Davidson of Potosi Farm in Shrewsbury, PA... Kathy sent me 3 samples right after shearing and I just *had* to buy all three fleeces. They are:



This is from Halle, a little 7/8 Blue-faced Leicester lamb. Halle was kind enough to let me have her first fleece! I promise to love it well Halle; with a first fleece this beautiful I can't wait to see what next year's will look like.



This is 4 pounds of vegetation-rich 100% Blue-faced Leicester fleece from a little ewe named Delilah. I need to get combs to process this stuff (unless anyone has a better method for getting vegetation out) and then I plan to dye it. It's very soft, but what with the ultra-bleached tips and the VM (sounds like VD, don't it?) I think it would be better off dyed.



And here is the Belle of the Ball: Mimi. Kathy was kind enough to let me buy this Merino x Blue-faced Leicester x Lincoln fleece out of her private stash. It is incredibly lustrous and clean as a whistle. This fleece deserves to be left its natural colors. It spans from fawn to silver to black and feels like it barely even needs to be washed. Lucious, just lucious.