A Sheep In Wools' Clothing: Rare Breeds Project Expands Exponentially

I have been busy in the fiber world, despite my not blogging much.

I've spent countless hours on the Internet tracking down sheep breeders of all sorts of breeds, but in particular the rare and critical breeds first. I've been washing said fleece constantly - I am figuring out ways to get the fleece cleaner faster and better. Currently, I am trying OxyClean in the water, and it really works well on hardened lanolin coated fleeces. (Does anyone out there know if OxyClean in any way harms protein fibers? ) I am starting to wonder what all the lanolin I am putting into my septic system is going to do to it, so meanwhile I keep feeding it RidX, and have decided next summer will be a good time to have the system pumped out....

And besides these raw fleece parts, I have some Nepalese cotton tree fiber coming, horse mane (when the owner next cuts his mane), and some raccoon fiber I found on eBay.... the wild and wonderful world of spinning expands its horizons! I am still collecting pill bottle cotton too.

I have the raw ingredients for the strap back scrapbook for displaying information, raw lock, single, plied yarn, knitted swatch and attempted felted swatch. Once I get past the washing and carding or combing of these fibers and actually get spinning and knitting on them, I'll take some pages worth of samples to the local scrapbook shop and have them help me make attractive displays of the fibers. Eventually, I would like to use this for spinning demonstrations at schools, or teaching.... Michele, the owner of the newest yarn store in the area and former Queen Kahuna sock student of mine, has already requested first dibs on the album in my will.....

Every once in a while when I am skirting around the drying fleece on sweater racks stacked in my bathroom, I wonder if I am crazy to be cleaning raw fleece. Then I think of how much I learn about these fleeces while hand processing them, and remember it is all about the process (to quote the wise Margene. So, while I am not making great progress in the Twisted Knitters KAL or in the Zimmermania KAL (I want to spin the yarn and knit a sweater of EZ's to do both of these KALs simultaneously), it is for a good cause - my own fiber obsession diversion!