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For the last three years, I have harvested fleeces from the boys using hand shears-
It’s a pretty casual affair, and we like it that way, but it does take me quite a while to get it done.

This year, we’re changing up the routine.

The new equipment just arrived the other day in it’s own special little suitcase:

Let’s take a look inside!

We’ve got the whole setup, and some extra blades –

Will probably still shear mostly with the boys standing haltered, but hopefully this will help us get through it a bit faster and make it a little easier to clean up their tummies when we do have them flipped.

Now we just need the weather to cooperate.

Now that Blackout 2014 is (hopefully) behind us, I’ll catch you up on the highlights:

Sadie & Snow

Skye & Snow (& tennis ball)

Snow Play

Snow Woman

You’re probably picking up a theme here, right?

Yeah, we had quite a lot of snow.
And we lost power.

Normally when that happens, we just fire up the generator and get on with our normal routine.
But it just so happens that this time, The Man is out of town for work.
And I am not generator qualified.

Plan B: Wood-stove.

Thank goodness for the wood-stove.

Breakfast on the Wood-stove:

Napping by the Wood-stove:

Most everything I’ve done indoors for the last two days has been in close proximity to the wood-stove.

What do you do when there is no power for two days?

If you are a pampered critter, you nap

On the Couch:

On the Bed:

Me? When not hauling wood to feed the almighty woodstove, or water for the critters
I continued work on refining my post-apocolyptic skill set:

Spin:

And Knit:

All the while wishing I wasn’t doing it by the light of a headlamp!

For the first time I am going to keep track of all the specs of creating a sweater, from fleece to finished object. (Or at least try)

I’m going to be doing a handspun version of Tuin, by Tori Seierstad, with some modifications. I’m knitting the body on all one color, and will do the yoke design in duplicate stitch rather than stranded.
I might also use the contrast colors to add some stripes to the bottom of the sleeves(?)

The fleece was already washed, so I’ll have to estimate the time involved based on the total weight of wool used and my standard washing procedure.

So, starting with the carding, here we go!

The base color of the sweater is going to be a 50/50 blend of Felix/Frank and Griff.

I’ve found that it took me three passes on the drum carder to get the two colors blended completely.
The batts I made averaged 2 oz, and took me about 10-11 minutes each.

I love the color. It’s a nice soft creamy golden beige.
The Frank/Felix is really soft, and Griff has wonderful crimp. They work together very nicely.
The F/F length makes it a little bit challenging to get off the carder, but means I don’t need as much twist in the singles, so I’m happy to deal with it.

So the next challenge was to figure out what kind of yarn I needed to spin to get the gauge specified in the sweater pattern (or close enough!)

The first try was completely off.

The yarn is great. Soft and squishy. Bouncy and beautiful. But way too big.
1.8 oz= 65 yards. approx 3.25 stitches/inch on size 8 needles (after washing)

Don’t know what I was thinking. The pattern suggests size 8 as the larger needle size that you would use for most of the garment.
Which seems really weird now that I think about it. How in the world do you get 4.5-5.5 stitches/inch on size 8 needles? Oh well.

The seconds try was more successful.
Getting about 4.75 stitches/inch, and I think I can work with that.

1 oz = 48 yards

Took approximately 30 minutes to spin the 1 oz of singles, and 10 minutes to ply them up.

My current plan is to create the designs on the yoke in duplicate stitch after knitting the yoke.

I’m only doing that because I really want to do the designs in different colors- though i’m not sure exactly how I’m going to arrange them yet.

Here’s a little sample duplicate stitching I did on the swatches to make sure the yarns are compatible-

Looks like it’s going to work!
So I’d better get spinning.

Based on my sample processing times, it should take me about 10.67 hours to spin one pound.

The second Canyonlands shawl is done and blocking!

And I am anxious to start another sweater.
I’ve even got one picked out-

Tuin, by Tori Seiuerstad

I love the patterning on the yoke- but I really want to do the separate parts of the design in different colors.

The tentative plan is to use a blend of Felix/Frank and Griff for the main yoke color, and the fun colors I dyed a while back for the patterning.

I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and I’m considering just knitting the yoke plain, and then going back and doing duplicate stitch.

The only way I could do it fair-isle style would be to work back and forth and have different colors going for each of the sections.
Possible, but pretty complicated.
I don’t have much experience with duplicate stitch, but I figure that way I’d actually be using less yarn overall, and I could work with only one color at a time.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

While I’m figuring it out, I’ve got some Zauberball socks going just to keep the hands busy.