Fiber Monday - Nothing complicated

While I've been working on lots of projects this month, I realized this week that I'm just not up for anything terribly complicated. Take my doubleweave sampler I've been working on. The original project that I planned to do and put enough warp on for involved maybe ten or so different variations of different things that can be done with the structure. The last half were fairly complicated in that it involved picking up different warp threads by hand. Normally I am all for time consuming and complicated, but not right now it seems. Today I decided I had learned everything I would ever use doubleweave for and cut the project off the loom. 


I did learn a lot and I'm glad I did it. You can't tell from just looking at it, but I learned to weave two separate layers of cloth, how to move the bottom layer to the top then back to the bottom, how to create cloth connected on just one edge and how to weave a tube. This was all great and I wove a few inches of each. 

Now look at this bit.


First notice that I only wove about an inch. This was definitely the beginning of the end. What you are seeing is three different tubes side by side created by using three different shuttles. It was fiddly. I also cannot think what I would ever use this for. There seem to be so many other easier ways to create tubes. 

Then this was the last but I did. 


This was weaving a tube, but having an opening in the center. You can see I moved the top green layer up a bit and you can see the solid white layer underneath. This wasn't quite as fiddly as the other, but I still don't know what I would use it for. 

Every other exercise after this invoked increasing amounts of fiddlyness so that was the end. Having learned to weave tubes, though, means I can start my next project of pillowcases. I need to do some math to plan them out so I know how much yarn to buy. Once that is done, it's a pretty straightforward structure which will not require a lot of brain space so will be perfect. 

Moving on to other uncomplicated things... With spring approaching, it means that sheep shearing needs to get in the calendar. The arrival of four more fleeces has been weighing a little heavily because I still have the three fleeces from last year's shearing sitting in bags.


My preferred method for prepping fleece is coming, but that is a very time consuming process. I really needed to figure out a more efficient way to manage it. On a whim I decided to try using my drum carder. 


It turns out that it works fairly well and is significantly faster. Here's the stack of batts I've already done. 


I did spin a small sample of each of the fleeces to see how it spins and if I like the yarn. Here's what I ended up with. 


It's not as smooth of a yarn as I get with combing, but it will do. My plan is to knit a sweater out of it, so this will turn into a cozy sweater. Eventually.


And finally my last project, the Melt the ICE hat.


It's about halfway done and I just have a couple more rows of ribbing. Ribbing is a little more time consuming, so I imagine the rest will go pretty quickly. Once again, this requires no overt thinking, so it's perfect for right now. 

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