X = 2.37

Whee!!

Guess what arrived yesterday?



SQUEE! That is 2.37 pounds of processed Clun Forest lambs fleece. I send just over 4 pounds off to be washed and processed and wasn't sure just how much I'd get back after washing and processing. (See how I worked that into my X post? Aren't I clever? *smug*)

It's much whiter than I expected - the fleece were dirty and still had some guard hair in them when I sent them to Blackberry Ridge, so the color surprised me.



Looks like a lot, eh? Each of those little bundles is about 2.5 to 3 ounces, except the little one on the top. (Jali was very intrigued by the fleece, but once she got a sniff or two, she pretty much left it alone.) It's not so overwhelming when you realize that a full two pounds of it got parceled out into 1 ounce packages to go to the Breed Swap. *smile* I'm a little torn about sending so much of it away, but in seeing just how much an ounce is, I'm equally excited that I'll be getting 32 1-ounce samples of different fleeces like that from the other participants!

Along with the 1-ounce samples, I'm to send 32 locks and 32 yards of two-plied yarn. I held back the fleece I washed to pull the locks, but haven't actually pulled them out yet; I'll do that this afternoon most likely. Spinning the yarn, though, meant I had to get the merino singles that I had on my spindle off:



That is 309 yards of merino singles, which I need to wash to re-awaken the twist so I can ply. In order to figure out how many yards I had, I had to measure my Pex niddy noddy, which turns out to be 80 inches for a full wrap. Slightly larger than a 2-yard niddy noddy, but if I decide I want to make it a 2-yard one, I can cut down the Pex. I didn't measure the small one, but I suspect that it will come in just over a yard.

It also turns out that my estimation of how long it takes me to spin 64 yards of yarn is *way* off. I spun this last night:



It's about 20 yards of singles, or 10 yards of two-ply, out of about .2 ounces. So today I'm working through a .6 ounce chunk (that little ball on top in the pyramid picture), which should give me the yarn I need for the swap. Then I'll pack it all up (in the box that the roving came in, most likely) and run it down to our post office to ship it off to the Breed Swap organizer.

I have about 2.5 ounces left to keep for myself (and I'll get an ounce back when the breed swap supplies come back) and I'm contemplating spinning it up and dyeing it. My friend Carol does period dyeing stuff and I think it might be fun to try some with this fleece. Of course, I might get impatient and try to dye it with Kool-Aid first!