Big Woods Day 1

This is our first day of our first week in Prairie Primer.  However, before I post what we have done today,  I want to share a project we started last week in preparation for a knitting project in week two of the Primer.

Since my girls already know how to knit I thought if would be fun for them to learn how to spin.  About a month ago a fellow blogger Danni, from On the way to Critter Farm, was offering llama fleece to anyone who would be interested, you can read about it here.  When we received it in the mail we were thrill with the amount she gave us!  (THANK YOU DANNI hugs and kisses from the girls)  I didn't weigh it but I think just eying it we may get a ball on yarn from it.

OK, I'm gonna put the prep process on hold to get to last weeks project, while searching out what we needed to spin this fiber with, I thought it a good idea to joined a yahoo group for spinners and just so happens ;-)  a member was posting about a 'kick spindle', so I googled it.  And found this, I know, beautiful!  I'm sure it is worth all of the $75.00 they are asking but our pocket book just could not handle it, so as I studied the spindle, I thought we could do this!.  We went out a bought the materials for a mere $30 for both spindles and had material left over to make another... possibly for mama ;-)  Yes, the girls build their own kick spindles, not as fancy but functional.  Here are a few pics of the process, enjoy!

First, remove the stud from the bun foot

yay, got it!

drilling a center whole in the bun foot

cutting the dowel rod down to size

sharpening each end of the cut dowel rod

screwing in the hook at the end of the small rod

didn't get a pick of cutting down the larger dowel rod

but did get the pic of the 45 degree angle of the cut

drilling a hole in the larger rod for the small dowel rod to go through

gluing down the larger dowel to the base

Here is their kick spindles and yes that is

some of the llama fiber, it was still dirty but

we just had to try out the spindles and they

work beautifully!!

Now, please understand that this llama fiber came straight off Kai, with

all the vm (vegetation matter), mud (not much) and 

what we think was a nice smell of llama!

Needless to say we couldn't spin it in this condition, so back to

google for some help and help I received.

We learned that the process of prepping the fiber was

SIMPLE!

Of coarse with the simplicity there was some very

important steps to follow in assuring that the fiber

would not felt in the process.

Here is the raw fleece with a sweet note from Danni

And here is the Lovely Kai, such a beauty!!

AbbiYah picking out vm and mud

YahChanna meticulously picking out vm

OK, the reason for taking the temp is we wanted to know

how hot the water was when we started.

a tablespoon of liquid Dawn Soap

Immerse/soak the fleece, it is important not to agitate or

move the fleece around too much, it can felt.  So, press it down

for about 30 seconds, release and let it alone!

Set the timer for 30 min.

When the 30 minutes are up, take the temp of the water, this is an

important step, because fluctuation of water temps can,

yes you guessed it, felt the fiber.

ever so gently squeeze just once maybe twice the excess water

out of the fiber, why gently... don't want to felt the fiber

Kai's fleece didn't look that dirty to us

but the water says other wise.  I found out while 

searching out about Llama's they love to roll in the dirt!

OK, to rinse the fiber they filled the tub with the same temp water no soap this
time and immersed the fiber again, just hold under for about 30 seconds and let it alone

after 30 min, gently squeeze the excess water out

Well, the water isn't very clear so they rinsed again 

since I posted the pics of the first rinse I didn't

see the need to repeat, so no pics of the second rinse

We gently placed the wet fiber onto a thick dry towel, rolled it

up and walked on it.  We did this twice with a fresh dry towel

because we didn't have any framed screen to dry it outside

in, it worked for us.  The result dry fiber!

After the fiber dried, it needs to be picked out, to loosen it up and

free the fibers of any mats.  While doing this process we removed

the vm we missed the first round.

The above pic is Kai's clean ready to be

carded fiber.  Oh carding?  That's for

another day ;-)