Birthday Presents

Slowly but surely my parents are working their way through all the people in the greater Ann Arbor area who own are in someway connected to fiber producing animals. It's actually one of the wonderfully nice things about the Ann Arbor area -- it doesn't take too long to get to a place where you could have a sheep or an alpaca or two. And, unlike most of Illinois, you can have your little fiber farm surrounded by trees and beautiful rolling hills. In fact, my parents actually have enough room for a sheep tor two. I keep telling them that babydoll sheep are not much bigger than a dog, and besides, wouldn't Ufer, the sweetest Rottweiler in the world, like a small herd of sheep to watch over? But so far, they, probably wisely, have avoided the adoption of any livestock.

But to get back to the point, my parents investigation of fiber farms in Ann Arbor resulted in a very nice birthday present. Unfortunately, I do not remember the name of the farm they got the fiber from, but I believe that they told me that the woman who has the farm is involved in a lot of animal rescue, so many of the animals I have fiber from have come from less fortunate circumstances to a place where they are much more appreciated.

Sheep and Llamas Abound!

What's in this nifty collection of natural colored fibers? The three bags on the furthest left come from llama. A chocolate brown, a charcoal-y grey brown and a natural white with a streak of charcoal grey. In the center (starting from the top) the pale yellow tan is a blend of camel and merino, the black is Corriedale (supposedly a natural color...can any one tell me if Corriedale sheep come in black?) and the little natural colored bag is Rambouillet and llama. On the far left, the brown gold ball is labelled as "sheep" -- it's pretty coarse, but the colors in it sure are nice. Then, below that, is a ball of natural colored Corriedale -- from two sheep named Emily and Jessy. Finally, the big bale of roving there was also labelled "sheep" and "for dyeing". Should be a lot of fun to play with and spin, as it's really not so bad to touch, even if I don't know what kind of sheep it comes from. (The last thing in the picture is one of my cats, even though he is very soft, it is unlikely he will ever be spun).

After an initial touch test, the thing I am interested in playing with first is the Corriedale. I guess my fingers can tell when they've encountered a merino-related sheep. The Corriedale also has this kind of springy Targhee-like quality that I think will be interesting to spin. And 4 ounces of it should be enough to make something of reasonable size after it's spun up. All the rest of the fibers and blends I'm roughly equally curious about. The llama is softer than you might expect it to be, and the colors are beautiful. Camel and merino and Rambouillet and llama are strange enough blends to make me want to see what they do. As to the fiber to be dyed, the real question will be... before or after spinning? And there's more than sufficient fiber to do a lot of experimenting with both color and spinning technique.

I have no idea what their ultimate project destination will be. However, it appears between this, and my own purchases, I have a lot of small samples of different types of fiber. And I'm getting this idea in my head that it would be kind of neat to have a blanket made of swatches from these intriguing oddments. Maybe I'll have to have my own little treasure hunt at MS&W to acquire fiber samples from as many interesting sheep as possible.