The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Food & crafts => Crafts => Topic started by: Fleecewife on January 04, 2013, 12:17:28 pm
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Being inspired to start spring cleaning, I am looking despondently at my stash. This consists of dozens of fleeces, some dating back to when my husband had a major illness 7 years ago and all I could do was hang the fleeces in bags in the barn (those of you who have been here probably banged your heads on them :D ). I also have loads of washed fleeces which just need to be worked on and a fair amount of carded fleece, ditto. I have dyed yarn from the days I spent experimenting with different dyeing methods (mostly in single 100gm balls), I have knitted items which were intended for sale but have probably gone out of fashion, I have large cones of yarn from New Lanark Mill which I got for dyeing practice, and I have similar cones which I had spun up for me by Halifax Mill last year - well 2011. Some of the Halifax yarn is for warp (Hebridean), some is for knitting (first shear Hebridean plus 15% alpaca - all my best fleeces from that year went into that spin run). There's a 3' cube sized box of Halifax yarn; I am working my way through the knitting yarn, but very slowly..... I also have hanks of yarn I've spun over the years but it hasn't been enough to make anything - I always intend to knit squares then sew them together for a granny knee rug ;D . There are also some knitting projects which didn't get off the ground but are still on needles.
We live in a small cottage and my OH is beginning to find my stash is really getting him down - it's getting me down a bit too. So where on earth do I start with sorting it? It's too cold and damp at the moment to sort the fleeces in the barn, but I could make a start indoors. I need a dry stretch for the barn fleeces as I think many of them will go on the bonfire - this is anathema to me but I am trying to be realistic. It's only 5 months til shearing time :tired:
Does anyone else have too big a stash? How do you decide what you will be able to use and what is just wishful thinking?
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There is acronym on Ravelry 'SABLE' - Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy', ie you've got more fleece and yarn than one person could ever hope to work through. Sounds like you might have a case :-*
Yeh, any sort of clutter gets me down in the end (not that you'd know it, seeing my place ::)), even valuable wool clutter.
You could certainly sell some of the dyed and handspun yarn - folk fetch reasonable money having an Etsy shop and drawing attention to it on Ravelry UK Classified.
You could also offer the fleeces, but I think you're probably right that some of them will need to become compost/basket filling/strawberry mulch....maybe you could offer them on Freecycle for such uses. Burning them just takes so long! If not, I'd be inclined to bag them up and take them to your nearest tip - again, because burning takes ages and relies on a dry day, so doesn't get things moving.
If you can think of it as making way for this year's fresh new fleeces maybe it won't feel as bad :-\
Gotta get that loom going again, it seems to me weaving is an excellent stashbuster ;)
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That's what inspired me to take it up again. I was given boxes of coned wool by the widower of a woman who was heavily into machine knittine. She had a room lined with shelves on three walls. The long wall and one short wall each had three shelves of cones. I took all the four ply and thicker but I'm never going to knit it all.
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STASH ACCUMULATION BEYOND LIFE EXPECTANCY - that is exactly it jaykay :roflanim: I love it ;D I'm also delighted it's a known diagnosis :eyelashes:
I suppose I should start selling stuff - we need the money now so wastage is..well...wasteful and I am of the age where nothing was wasted. I do struggle with the values of today's throwaway society.
The fleeces are not really suitable for sale. I do sell fleece, but only straight after shearing when it's new and delicious. I keep the best fleeces for me and to sell, so what is stored is mainly intended for floor rugs. I have decided to convert our granny flat into a workroom, so I can set up at least the 4 shaft loom, although I would like to bring the Dryad floor standing rug loom in there too. This is the trouble though - these things will happen, but even if all the fleece I have was woven into rugs, it will take slow old me forever to do it.
MGM - I want to avoid that too - my DiLs having to go through the stash and decide what to do with it. Knowing them they would just burn it anyway or send even the good stuff to the tip, so I want to get it sorted first ie before I'm dead. We are going through other stuff too, labelling what is important or valuable so they don't just chuck the lot.
Clearly I must get the looms working :thumbsup: Although - I knew one person who had one of those huge looms which take up half a room (and her room was a specially built extension). She spent most of her time working on it, but the rest of the room was full of beautifully made rugs, scarves and so on, just sitting on shelves, so her weaving was ultimately pointless. The moral of that tale is that I must get into selling. My OH has started selling loads of stuff from his workshop, which is his version of jaykay's SABLE, so we are hopefully developing a climate of 'if we can't use it, sell it' :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
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I think William Morris's "Have nothing in your house which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful" is a good thing to aim for, useful in this instance being qualified by 'in this lifetime' ;)
I shall keep aiming for it!
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useful in this instance being qualified by 'in this lifetime' ;)
Yeah - but who knows how long my lifetime is going to be? ???
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Ok, we're allowed to work on 120, to give a good margin for error ;D
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If you are selling any of it, let us know. I don't often go on market place so a note on this thread would be useful as well.
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If you do decide to sell any of it Fleecewife, could you keep some carded fleece aside for me please ? ;) I'm looking espeically for some white/cream/light coloured stuff, but all will be usefull :thumbsup:
Says she who has a whole fleece waiting to be washed and worked on ::)............sometime :D
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FW, I have been given some raw fleeces, such as you describe, by a very kind lady to help me get up and running and start spinning. They're not the best, top quality fleeces ever (which might be why I'm not afraid to wash them in the washing machine) but they are loved, by me as they are my very first attempts.
Surely if you can find someone who will appreciate them then they won't be wasted?! ;)
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I love throwing things out, some of which I have regretted in my time, but then I forget about them again.
If you are going to bonfire them, isn't it worth using as insulation for something (chicken house etc?) or keeping plants in pots cosy through the winter? Or is that just shifting stuff from one place to another and not really clearing them out. :thinking:
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Long ago I used to sew fleece hats before fleece material was common place here - as a ski coach I worked abroad a lot and would always buy fleece material to bring home - I still have a very large trunk full which I can't bare to part with as I still remember how exited I was when I bought it!!
Guess. I'm sorted if a goat needs a coat!!
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Or if you need one.
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You could probably make some good money selling rugs from the fleeces that are no good for spinning.
My stash is not so bad but I have put myself on a buying ban until I work through more of it!
Good luck!
Dans
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I've been on a buying ban for years :roflanim: - well, almost as I did buy some BFL tops. But the sheep keep on growing their fleeces :sheep: :sheep: :sheep: :sheep: :sheep: and I can't keep up.
I'm beginning to feel well enough to start some weaving once I get the looms set up, so probably I will start with some made from unspun fleece, a bit like a pegloom would produce. Warping up will be a laugh as I haven't done it for a few years, so Utube will have to be consulted. Whatever did we do before Utube?
I think that once I start on going through the fleece stash I will have a better idea of the scale of the problem. I will start in the barn first so OH gets some space and because those fleeces are most likely to be damp and useless.
I do use some fleece around the place, for hanging baskets, keeping the compost heap cosy, holding the stones in place in potholes and so on, but mostly we want to have a spring cleaning blitz.
Happy Hippy - I think I will be hanging on to anything I have already invested time and effort in, so carded fleece will be either spun or used in the floor rugs. Also, my sheep are black so I don't have much paler coloured stuff. Sorry :( What are you going to be making?
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I'm felting soap ;) My sister got me some merino tops/rovings from Christmas in a beautiful range of colours but they're all dark colours, and I want to mix them with lighter colours on the bars to try and get some patterns and nice effects.
I can understand not wanting to sell stuff you've worked on though - suppose I'd better get my finger out and just make a start on my fleece :innocent: (though I worry about the addiction aspect of all things fleecy and fibery :o :excited: )
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suppose I'd better get my finger out and just make a start on my fleece :innocent: (though I worry about the addiction aspect of all things fleecy and fibery :o :excited: )
Just roll over and let it wash over you - it's gonna anyway :D
Waiting for you on the other side... :wave: ;) :D
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It's only 5 months til shearing time
I actually registered just to reply to this. ::)
If the fleeces hanging in the barn (or any other fleeces that you were talking of burning) would ultimately go to waste, perhaps consider felting them to make coats for your flock? Coated fleeces aren't common at all in the UK since handspinning is only just coming back into "fashion" now. In the US they fetch premium prices, mostly due to the expense of buying two-to-four coats per sheep for a years growth. However, having tried some coated fleece from the States, I have to admit that it really does make for a premium fleece! If you have the wool sitting about available to try making coats, perhaps it might be worth trying?
Other than that, I would agree with what everyone else is saying about making the most of your bounty. The best of what you don't want would be eagerly accepted by new spinners and even the very worst would still make good insulation, compost addition, or even pillow stuffing!
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Elariel, welcome to the TAS forum. :wave:
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Hi Elariel and welcome :wave: Thank you for coming here to answer my query. I hope you stay and we can learn more about what you do.
I have in fact thought a bit about coating sheep to produce a better quality fleece. I used to keep a flock of 'fleece specials' ie very fine-wooled crossbreeds, whose fleeces I sold at a premium. However, I think coating must be of more use in a dry climate, where the coat prevents damage from the sun, and keeps veg matter out. Here in Scotland it's SO wet that fleeces felt easily, even when covered, and the rubbing of the coats seems to make it worse.
However, most of my sheep are Hebrideans now and they have a lovely rain-shedding double coat which is primitive and not a finewool. The only fine fleeced sheep I have currently are two white Shetland ewes and I will be using their fleeces myself.
Really my problem is that I simply can't do the work to process all the fleeces I have stored. Also I have over the years cherry picked the best fleeces to sell or spin myself, so what's left is definitely poorer quality. I will though have a good look through and offer for sale any which are useable, which I don't think I can make into rugs in my lifetime :innocent:
I have though always wanted to make some larger pieces of felt for embroidered floor rugs but, apart from going to one of the WinghamWoolWorks days when you can use their felting machine, I can't think how to make such large pieces. Well, I have toyed with the idea of towing a big roll behind the LandRover, a bit like they tow one behind horses in Mongolia when they make a new yurt....now that would be fun ;D But then we are back to the fact that I also have to do the smallholding work, grow my veggies etc, maybe do the occasional bit of housework :P . We'll see.
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Hi Elariel and welcome.
Thank you! I just came back from visiting your site, reading about your hebrideans and cooing over the lamb photos!
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Hi Elariel and welcome.
Thank you! I just came back from visiting your site, reading about your hebrideans and cooing over the lamb photos!
I hope you enjoyed the visit :) We need to update the site to reflect the fact that we now have fewer sheep. Also the pics of the veg garden are no longer entirely true - well, not at all true :o because the outside veg garden went to wrack and ruin this past year. Inside the tunnel is fine though and I hope to be able to upload more pics this summer when all is growing. There should :fc: be more lamb pics in April, including a few Shetlands as well as the Hebs.
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Hi Elariel :wave: - I suspect I know you from Another Place, where I am known as 'castlemilk' ;)
I'm glad you brought up the subject of coating fleece sheep - I had never heard of it until I started spending some time on Ravelry, and I've not discussed it before as it's so new to me I have been digesting the ideas and thinking about my reactions to them.
We discussed 'unseasonal shearing' here (http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/uk-spinners/1175843) a wee while back, mainly in the context of showing sheep and housing them over winter. In that thread someone mentioned turnout rugs, but we didn't get into the idea of protecting the fleece to preserve it for spinning.
My initial reaction to coating sheep was that it can't be comfortable for the sheep - if it's warm, they'd be too hot, wouldn't they? And my other initial reaction was concern about flystrike - if there are flies about, it would be too easy for them to get under the coat and lay eggs in the sheep's own fleece, hidden from the owner's view... :o
However, I haven't seen these problems discussed in the sheep keeper groups on Ravelry.