A Wool Gathering

Last Saturday I spent the day in a large tent surrounded by sheep, goats, llamas and hundreds of people! This wasn't just any gathering...this was a gathering of FIBER!

Whether you wanted to make something and needed to buy the yarn, or wanted to spin, felt or whatever, you could have found it here! Or maybe you wanted something already made, yup... lots of vendors for that too!

There were sheep shearing demos, weaving, spinning, knitting, rug making.... all you had to do was ask and there was someone who could tell you about FIBER!

My tent showed people just where wool and fiber comes from and the process to get it to you! I answered questions for 8hrs and spun for about that long too!

I thought it would be fun to post a few pictures from the Wool Gathering, then show you just what I did with the fiber I spun!

We took 3 llamas, Diego, Fusion and Shadow.
Here's a closeup...the white, fluffy piece I'm holding in my right hand is "roving". Roving is done by carding the fibers, aligning all the hair in the same direction. My bobbin and flyer are moving very fast, that's why it kind of looks blurry. I'm not spinning the fiber, I'm just guiding so it's even consistency . I'm pretty sure this fiber is from Fusion.


This is Jenna and her ewe, Bacardi. Diego wasn't quite sure just what this was! He had to sniff and sniff.


Here is the full bobbin, single ply. I used a ball winder to take this off of the bobbin, then spinning from the ball, made it 2 ply.

Here is the finished yarn. Now, it could be made into something right from this point, but I thought you might like to see how I dye my yarn *wink*

Yes, Kool-Aid works as a dye! Now you know why mom always told you to stay OUT of the living room when you were drinking it!

The yarn was wet thoroughly with warm water, with about 1/2" of water in the dish. Then the fun part!! There is no rhyme or reason, just sprinkle the powder over the yarn. Sometimes I dye the roving first (in the same manner) then spin it.

Now, I'll add a little more water, smoosh (technical term) the Kool-Aid into the yarn, and pop it in the microwave. I let it "brew" for about 5 minutes at a time, checking frequently the color of the water.

I can hear you saying...HELLO! You just put red and green in there...what color do you think it's going to be!! LOL
But, when the fiber has absorbed all the dye, the water will be clear!

Pretty cool,huh! The water in the spoon is clear! So now I can rinse the yarn in cold water, squeeze the excess water out and hang to dry.

This is the dyed, dried yarn....say that 3x real fast! This is a 2 yard skein and weighs 5 ounces. I would have liked a little more green, but that was all the "green" flavor I had! I'll wind it into a ball and start knitting something. When I get it finished, I'll post pictures.

So, there you have it....that's what I do with my llama fiber! If you get the chance to visit a fiber festival, do it! I guarantee you'll be amazed.

Thanks for stopping!!

Dawn