Wooly whiteness

More of a creamy whiteness really but it is cold enough here to require many many wooly layers today. Someone ( Mo'a at http://moaromigboyles.typepad.com/ ) asked if the spindle in the earlier picture was mine. Oh yes indeed. I've been knitting for a good while now but late last year two members of my Knitting Bee arrived armed with a spindle and some fleece in order to lure me over to the Distaff side. I didn't need much persuading, Great Aunt Nan and Great Aunt Ina had worked in a local weaving factory many years ago and I have often wondered if that is where my fibre leanings came from. That and my grandmother's skill with needles.

This weekend was the Spinning Guild meeting and I brought my carders along in order to ask for help in learning how to use them. Not only did I get a lesson, I also came home with at least one sheep's worth of fleece. A huge smelly sack full. Every day I have been washing at least 100g worth in order to work my way through. I love the transformation, seeing the mucky water pouring into the sink, many times till it runs almost clear. The fleece is soaked in Nan's old jeely pan and it is hard to believe when you see the mucky mass within, that just a wee while later, dried and carded into rolags, this filthy fleece becomes clean and cloud light. Full of glorious possibilities.