I have several pounds of Virginia grown and Virginia processed roving available. The wool is light gray with the sun bleached tips. after processing the wool look more tan than gray. Here are some pictures with samples spin up.:

Wool 1

Wool 2

These are from 2 different sheep, but they are nearly identical in color and feel. They both have  a heathery look when spun and spin up nicely.

4 ounces – $8.00,  8 ounces – $15.00,   1lb – $28.00

The last roving  was processed in Virginia, but not grown here, but it is still a nice roving. It is a charcoal gray and spins up nicely also.

Wool 3

This one is also the same price.  4 ounces – $8.00,  8 ounces – $15.00,   1lb – $28.00

Prices do not include shipping. PayPal payments only. Email – frani at gammawgeek.us

Well Tom is doing it again. He is giving away one of his fabulous carders. You will need to be a member of his Ravelry group. You can get to it here:

http://www.ravelry.com/groups/fancy-kitty-lovers

This carder is the only carder I use for all my batts and roving I make for the yarn that I spin. I cannot imagine any carder doing a better job for me. Here are some pictures of my work:

Walnut Dyed Lincoln X Wool

Black Shetland Lamb, about a sport weight and approx. 275 yards

SOLD

contact me at: frani at gammawgeek.us

Here are some weaving stick/hook I have recently made. They are Bamboo and have a hook on one end and a point on the other.

Weaving Hooks/Sticks - hook end

I love using them when weaving on my small triangle or square looms. The are great for pulling yarn through the weave. I have several sizes available:

3.5mm, 3.75mm, 4.0mm, 4.5mm, 5.0mm, 5.5mm, 6.0mm, 6.5mm, 7.0mm, and 8.0mm

I have at least 2 of each size as of this post. most under 5mm are dark in color, all the largest sizes are light in color.

weaving stick/hook - pointed ends

Here are the drop spindles I mentioned in my add to the lists:

Description from left to right

1. SOLD
2. SOLD
3. Ceramic pear shaped bead with bamboo shaft, 9 inches tall – $9.00
4. Ceramic Bead with Brazilian hardwood shaft, 10 inches  tall – $9.00
5. Horn Bead with birch shaft, 12 inches tall – $9.00

And here are the support Bowls:

Support bowls

From left to right -

1. Medium brown bowl, a bit over 2 inches wide – $4.00 (only 1 of these available)

2.  Small brown bowl – 1 1/4 inches wide – $3.00 (only 1 of these available)

3. Large white Bowl – 4 inches wide – $4.00 (only 1 of these available)

4. Small white bowl – 1 1/4 inches wide – $3.00 (Several of these available)

5. Medium white bowl – a bit over 2 inches wide – $4.00 (Several of these available)

After showing some of my handy work to the Yahoo group I belong to (HandPreparedFibers) I though it would be interesting to everyone to show what I started with and my journey with the fleece that turned out so nice.

This was the first fleece I had purchased. So naive me, had no idea what I was getting into. That fact was actually a blessing in disguise. If I knew then what I know now, I may have never been open to the possibilities that this fleece presented to me.

This was a 2 year fleece off a Lincoln lamb, first shearing, and weighed 23 pounds. It was cheap and within my budget, so I though I should be able to do something with it. When it arrived in a really big box, I though “Boy, this is going to take a while”. I am still working on it 2 years later. I only pulled a hand full out to play with. I saved the major work until I got my own apartment.

After getting settled in my apartment, I pulled the whole fleece out to see what it looked like. it had been rolled up as is the usual for a fleece, so most of what i had seen was the good part. The little I had originally pulled was not to bad. But boy was I in for a surprise. Matted, cotted tips, a bit of poop and hay and who knows what else.

Raw Fleece 7

Raw Fleece 4

As you can see, the top of the fleece look really bad – really bad. But you know all I could think about was how beautiful and soft the inner part of the fleece was.

Raw Fleece 2

Raw fleece 5

As you can see above, looking from the underside it has a nice crimp and looks really nice and that was the part I focused on. So yesterday I washed a part of it to show the process.

You can see from the first pictures above what I started with, I pulled pieces from that section of the fleece, and these are some of the locks after washing – Notice the length (about 10 inches), also, I did not cut out any of the bad stuff, just washed it all together. It keeps the lock structure intact and makes it easier for me to handle – yep, I can feel some of you cringing, but that is the way I do it. One thing I just tried with this washing – ammonia, and it works great for cleaning fleece:

Washed Locks

Washed Locks

Now here are the same locks after I cut off the bad portions (cotted tips, etc.) and brushed out the remaining locks:

Brushed Locks

Be sure to look at the length, yep, after removing the bad stuff, there are still 10 inch locks. Now there is some yellowing that will not come out, but that does happen in many fleeces. It has not been a problem for me as you will see. Do any of you gals from HPF realize what fleece this is?

Let’s see if you recognize these pictures, this is some of the fleece after dying with walnuts:

2009 Walnut dyeing

Walnut Dyed Lincoln - Golden Brown

Finished Batts in Various shades of walnut dyeing

Yes, the walnut dyed fleece, quite a bit different than what I started with. And here is a small piece of yarn I made and did a little crocheting with to see how it was going to work up:

Finished yarn, started crochet project

You know I am glad I started with this fleece in my learning process. Sure it has been a mess to clean and a very slow process, but it has taught me many lessons that I would have never learned had I not purchased it.

Many of you read my post about my Rhinebeck items getting lost in the mail back in September. Well a couple of weeks ago, Chris emailed me and lo and behold on a Sunday morning my package showed up on her front porch, unopened.

No one knows who left it there or where it has been for 4 months, but I am happy to say that Chris got the box back to me and my granddaughters have been happily wearing the items I made for them.

Just found this on another blog (Knit and Crochet Chat). If you have a blog you can setup a link like I have and enter for a chance to win a pair of Uggs Boot.I have a pair of Uggs bedroom slippers and if the boots are anywhere near as nice as they are – well, it will be hard for me to wear anything else! So give it a try!

before I get to Zhu Zhu Pets, a quick note about my last post and the Rhinebeck items. The box and items were never found. My hope is that the box made it to someone that really needed items to keep warm for the winter.

Now for Zhu Zhus – My granddaughter got 2 for her birthday. She is allergic to real hamsters so this is a bonus for her. I have to say they are the cutiest things and they are all over the place just like real hamsters – and they make the cutest noises. Darn things have more energy than I do.

Of course she got me busy making things for them. One of the items I created is a crocheted sleeping bag with a pillow. it turned out so nice that  I actually wrote out the pattern and have it for sale on my Etsy store. I included instructions for a single sleeping bag and a double sleeping bag so the Zhu Zhus can have a sleep over. This is a great pattern for using up scraps of leftover yarns also – so I included in the pattern an alternate method for creating the sleep sack no matter what yarn or crochet hook you use. If you are interested, you han find the patter in my Etsy store – here.

Here are some pictures of the sleep sacks:

Single Sleep Sack

Single Sleep Sack with Zhu Zhu

Double Zhu Zhu Sleep Sack

Well as my last posts mentioned, I was spinning yarn to make a shawl for Rhinebeck this month. It would have been displayed at the National CVM Conservancy table along with items that many others had made from the rare CVM sheep.

Things did not work out like I had hoped and my shoulder flared most of the summer stopping me from using my triangle loom to make the shawl. So I decided that I would make the granddaughter’s  some things they had been asking for – a warm hat and fingerless gloves for trips to Vermont, earmuffs, a small scarf for one of them. I also crocheted a headband and some granny squares. Out of the leftovers, I made my dog a sweater. Then I sent of my package with all the free patterns I used, and some cards made up showing the various stages of the wool as I worked on it.

So I packaged it off Priority Mail with delivery confirmation and 2 days later it said it was delivered. Then after about 2 weeks, it dawned on me that I had never heard from Chris saying she received it. So I emailed Chris to make sure she got the package. To my surprise………

The package was never delivered to her at the Concervancy – She never got my box.

We both emailed back and forth for over a week, her looking for the package, me trying to get to talk to someone at USPS about the package. When I finally did speak to someone at USPS, this is the answer I got -

“Well,  delivery confirmation says it was delivered, so there is nothing we can do about it.”

My response was “Well what that tells me is someone says they did their job, but actually did not, as it never was delivered to the address on the package.”

And USPS wonders why people are not shipping as much with them.

So essentially I am SOL. In that box were items made from 3 different fleeces and a pound of chocolate roving from Chris. The yarn you see in an earlier post made with the strand of gold silk and the chocolate roving – yep, almost all of that was lost.

And I still have not told my granddaughters about their things. I keep holding out hope that it will magically appear, even if it is not in time for Rhinebeck.

Now I know everyone is thinking – why didn’t you insure it or use signature confirmation?  Well the truth is I could not afford it, I had just enough to ship it there. Anyway here are some pictures of the items I sent -

Dog sweater and small hand warmers and one of the crochet squares

Hat and Dog Sweater

Both pair of fingerless gloves and crochet Squares

Scarf, Headband and Ear Muffs