Yet another new project

Well!  Hello, all!  I've been busy in the past month, enjoying my freedom from grad school immensely and filling up my calendar with all sorts of things.  I've been working on lots of projects, so I'll try to get back to my weekly posts to share all the good stuff!  I seem to go through phases of starting a bunch of things, then later phases of finishing all the PhDs (projects half done).

So, on to the first of the new projects I've got under way.

Over my gloriously long winter break (11 days, one of the perks to working at a school) I decided to take a look at the Icelandic lamb's fleece my friend Diane (what a nice name, eh?) sent me.  The sheep is named Tyrion and this was his first shearing.  I am going to spin up the yarn and in return I get to keep half!  I split it up into colors (black, gray and the bits of black and white I couldn't get to separate cleanly) and white.  He was shorn very nicely.  No second cuts and no real skirting needed.  As you can see, I combed a little bit of the gray with my viking combs.  The spray bottle contains water with a little oil in it to combat the static that is part of the joy of dry Idaho air.  This stuff is so nice!  The guard hairs are very fine and soft, so I'm planning to spin tog and thel together.  I will be spinning this fleece "in the grease" (aka no washing the lanolin out).  It's very clean, I love the way it leaves my hands soft, and the lanolin makes it easy to spin a fine yarn, helping hold the fibers together.

I am also still working on the gray fleece from my laurel's Icelandic sheep Rainy, my spinning sampler with the period spindle, and my modern project (a chocolate brown merino fleece that will be a sweater for moi).