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June 03, 2007
Catching Up!
I can’t believe it’s been so long since I posted, especially since the “garden” looks worse now than it did when I cleaned it in March. Oh well, that’s what summers are for. Grad school is over, I survived my first middle school field trip and there are only two more school days left. Near the top of my to do list is a massive purge, stock and store of all things fiber and fabric related. I expect to have a huge list of things for sale. Since I’ve never sold anything on eBay before, I need to add this to my list of things to learn.
Compared to other stashes I’ve heard and read about, I never thought I had much of a problem. However, the recent combination of the blues, a non existent budget, and the persistent notion that I can save money by making everything I need has turned a few fiber/fabric related excursions into piles, piles, piles of interesting projects; so many piles in fact that I have officially exceeded the capacity of my sewing room. The priciest ones are of course my well intentioned attempts at frugality.
Frugal Attempt #1 - How about purchasing raw fiber and processing it myself? What a great idea! First purchase 3 ½ pounds of raw Shetland fiber at the bargain price of $5 a pound. Then a carder, used, because hand carding is too hard on my hands. And an electronic scale, 20% off at Bed & Beyond, to measure, and later dye, TAH DAH 8 1/8 ounces of clean smelling wool, still sprinkled with vegetable matter.
Lessons Learned – Raw fiber is gross. It smells and requires many baths. The smell is so off putting that I was perhaps too vigorous in my cleansing efforts. After drying, I ended up with wads, yes wads and wads of wool that was sometimes soft and easy to comb, most times rough and full of non woolly bits. I had to comb it first with Claire’s wire dog brush before I could feed it into the carder. I must admit the combing was strangely soothing. I suspect that the fleece needed serious skirting first. And more determination on my part, hence the measly 14% return on raw weight. I refuse to calculate the price per ounce, it’s too embarrassing. Suffice to say that I need to process about a dozen shetlands before I can call the frugal aspect of the project a success.