Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Ode to Romney




The Romney lamb's fleece purchased at MDSW on Sunday.  I couldn't resist processing a sample.

I  grabbed a couple of handfuls of the fleece.

Soaked it in hot, hot water.  I set a timer for twenty minutes and didn't touch it.

I soaked it in a second tub of hot, hot water with some blue Dawn dishwashing liquid.  Again I set the timer for twenty minutes and left it alone.  I repeated this step another time.

The clean locks were placed on a rack to dry in the sun.

Then I flicked the locks to open them up.

You can see the difference here.  The bottom lock has been washed and flicked.

Augie is guarding the 11grams of flicked Romney locks and black nylon.

After two passes through the drum carder this is a 13 gram batt of 75% Romney and 25% nylon.

This spun up beautifully.  The three ply sample after washing is 16 wraps per inch with a 30 degree angle of twist.  It was spun worsted on the Little Gem II at a ratio of 8.6:1.  The singles will rest over night and be plied tomorrow.




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