Socks - In the beginning there was sheep....

In the beginning there was a sheep- an animal so sweet to give its fleece each spring - that we might have warm clothing - sweaters and socks - blankets and hats.

I have this notion that most folks - even knitters don't always have a clear view of how that wonderful fiber gets to be a pair of socks.  So I thought I would go from fleece to socks, including spinning, dying and knitting - and show you.  I am not going to start right at the sheep yet.. I will save that one for when I have my own sheep.

We will start with opening that box of goodies from our local shepardess - and her happy flock of Babydoll sheep.


YUM!!!

This is 8 oz roving from Mylittlesheep.com.  It is the stuff dreams are made of.  The shepardess has the  processed  into roving - long thick ropes of fiber that is all going the same direction .  She also sent me some unprocessed fleece - I like to work with unprocessed wool as well - it has the grease ( Lanolin) that is a joy to spin.

The first thing I did was to spin a little to see what I had do do to get the correct size of "singles" more on that later.  Once I did that - I knew how to strip the roving so it would be easier to spin the right size of yarn.
Striping the roving into the right size and coiling it around my hand into a "Nest" -  I will spin from these.

Now a note to those that follow my blog - don't let this happen to you... never no never leave the DD ( Devil Dog) alone in the room with your perfect little nests. They simply cannot resist the perfect fluff.  Cats don't seem to care.. but don't hold me to that.

So here is the result-- Devil Dog excluded and banished...a beautiful pile of bird's nests.. Now on to Spinning....