New Group!!

I decided to start a Yahoo Group! It is called handpreparedfibers. I was hoping a few people would have the same interest I do and like to talk about it. It just seemed like so many people had questions or were intimidated to work with raw fleece. Alot of people were having trouble with Angora, oh so pretty! What do you do with cotton bolls? If you want to grow flax, then what?? Well, much to my suprise, there are over 160 members so far! Everyone has been so nice, staying on topic, only advertising on Monday and Thursday like I requested and only promoting those thing that have to do with raw fibers or processing them. I already let it be known, this moderator is not doing much moderating :) I belong to one group, I can't even get a message posted, no matter how much I beg or remove my sig line. That is discouraging. All I have done so far is check in a couple times a day, check links and pics. So far the are all so considerate. And what a wealth of knowledge! I can see where a few are still alittle conservative in their posting, not wanting to post links or make suggestions, but they are loosening up as the notice they aren't getting scolded :)

So what have I been doing? Well I have a beautiful lamb fleece from the batt lady, white Salish. It wasn't coated so it is alittle dirty, but it is washing up wonderfully and it is oh so soft. It's mine I tell you all mine! Here's a picture before and after.

Then I combed up some Polypay to ply with a muticolored single I have, it also combed up so soft and pretty

Then I had a bobbin of mixed wool, I called it kitchen sink. It was a muti sack of colors, alittle day of this and that. So I spun it up in sections and spun up a little thicker strand of silver Salish and plied them together. I am really please how it turned out. Then I had a small amount of Lavender left so I made a cordinating skein to go with it. I just love the Salish wool.

Then I combed up some Llama, he was a big boy and so soft! Very long staple, I really expected it to spin up a little course as I only pulled out few guard hairs, but look how it spun up! So soft. It's going on my Etsy site for someone that wants to spin up some wonderful soft singles. I don't think it will lend it's self to thin yarn.

So today I need to get all my scraps together and put on my Etsy site. I have so many combings left over. I wasn't really sure some of it would felt, and as you know I don't felt so I don't really know what I am doing. So I brought in some of the LLama I combed, and the Merino I had left over and started trying to felt. Well much to my surprise the Llama felted almost instantly! The Merino felted but not as fast. I had heard that Llama didn't felt well, but this sure does! I have gotten good feed back from my scrapes and they seem to sell quickly. Several of the lady's that purchased them have actually spun some novelty yarns. I don't put in anything that has veggie matter so it is all clean. and at 1$ an oz I guess it's cheaper than buying fiber to felt at the hobby stores.

So if you read my blog from time to time stop by the new group

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/handpreparedfibers/

a very nice and interesting group of people.