# Prepare to keel over! Look At What I bought!!!



## IowaLez (Mar 6, 2006)

So, I had posted a few weeks ago on our wonderful fibery forum, about the Georgia Yarn Company's bulk silk by the kilo. 

Well, Michael, the owner, has his anniversary sale going this month, with a 10% discount on his goods. And I had been hemming and hawing, but I did accumulate enough seed $ to make a buy. :happy:

I got .97 kilo, or 2.1 pounds, of the Muga silk combed top, the last Muga fiber he had. It is fantastically lovely, and I swoon when I look at it! Such a lovely pale golden-tan-beige color!

*And THEN...* I did something I have sworn I would *never* do... _Buy raw fleece at a price to make me faint in agony of how much it cost..._

Two weeks ago, Desiree, who is the shepherdess for Genopalette farm in MO, posted a for-sale ad on a yahoo fiber list, for their farm's carefully bred merino wool. They have imported stock from New Zealand, and her husband is a NZ certified wool person (I forget the real term). *

ULTRAFINE!!! $64 per pound!!!! They had 2.5 pounds left!*

It took me a week to make up my mind about it. It is 15 microns in diameter, but spinning micron is 14.5. For comparison, cashmere is about 13 microns. Yak and camel down, and quiviut are around 18 microns. A human hair is 60 microns. What IS a micron? It a thousandth of a millimeter! 

I looked in Wikipedia right now and it is totally wrong in saying the average merino fiber is as low as 10 microns. That is* total nonsense.* The "average" merino fiber is also about 18, or more, it depends on how carefully they are bred, and there are NUMEROUS KINDS of merino sheep (if you have read the Little House books, you will know that Ma wore her fine Delaine merino dress to the Xmas gathering at Grand Ma's house in the Big Woods). There is Spanish merino, French merino (ramboullet), Autralian merino, the Delaine merino, and many more.

This is only the* second time in 2 decades *that I have seen merino this fine, and I have had access to some really good stuff back in Cali...

So, I bought 2 pounds worth, and she discounted it to *JUST $40 per pound *since I bought two! I still almost fainted when I emailed her to buy it. here are the pics, I hope you can see things okay. I have the local library doing an inter-library loan for me to read Margaret Stowe's out-of-print book all about Merino, and should have it later this week. I can have it and renew it for a total of 2 months time!

I still can't believe I spent that much per pound, but I almost faint when I look at it in the box! Now i have to plan how to spin it up, and what to make with it!

Enjoy the photos!


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## Miz Mary (Feb 15, 2003)

The crimp on it is AMAZING !!!! How fun for you !!! Is it washed yet ?? It sure looks white and beautiful !!!! ENJOY your treasure !!!!


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## raccoon breath (Aug 5, 2010)

I have keeled over and am still unconscious! Very nice!


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## Wind in Her Hair (Jul 18, 2002)

unbelievable, Lez. Absolutely UNBELIEVABLY beautiful! 

that is a fleece fit for a KING! :bow::bow: :bow: I know you will make the most of it. Wow. 

Just wow. :shocked:


I am truly overjoyed for you!!!! THAT is the nicest fleece I have ever seen.

Do you want me to loan you my copy of Margaret Stowe's DVD on Spinning for Lace?


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## hercsmama (Jan 15, 2004)

Stunning Lez, simply stunning.


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## Marchwind (May 10, 2002)

WOW! That's all I have to say . Enjoy!


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## bergere (May 11, 2002)

That is a stunning haul of fiber! Beautiful stuff. Can't wait to see what you do with it.


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## Kasota (Nov 25, 2013)

WOW!!!! That is simply gorgeous!!!!! I can feel your happy heart just singing! Oh, to have had a picture of your face as you opened the box....  

Sure am looking forward to seeing what you do with it!!!


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## MDKatie (Dec 13, 2010)

HOLY cow!!! The crimp!!!! Can you do us a favor? I think after you spin it up you should pass the skein around for us to all feel it and ooh and aah over it!! LOL. I so wish we could reach through our monitors to feel the things we see here!! That looks so lovely!!!


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

That is almost unbelievable. Amazing.


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## Callieslamb (Feb 27, 2007)

That is beautiful. The pictures make me want to put my hands in it. I can't imagine what the real stuff must be like! Congratulations!


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## IowaLez (Mar 6, 2006)

WIHH,

I would love to borrow your DVD, but not until I get the wool washed and figure out how to prep it for spinning! The library book should help me do that right, and not mess up the wool due to me doing something stupid to it. 

I hope the book will guide me, I'm not sure what is the best way to card it, if at all, altho my ancient Patrick Green carder has fur cloth on the drum. I don't know if that is good enough, or should I send it to the mill I patronize - she has excellent equipment for the finer fibers, but I kinda want to do it all by myself, and mailing it to her would be like sending my youngest child off to the gypsies! 

I just feel so uber-cautious about handling the wool, I haven't put my greasy, grubby little hands into it yet, at all, not even a finger! I just open the box and look at it, drool, and gently pat the topmost locks... and sigh. I think about taking it to bed with me, so I can sleep next to it, and it can infiltrate my dreams. (Much better than all the stupid "bucket" dreams I've been having about the stupid GF. gre:The other night I was dreaming I had a big bucket o' little bunnies, but they were jumping out of the bucket so I had to keep popping them back in it. No, my dreams make no sense, but bunnies in a bucket is better than her (insanity) puke or poop!) :help:

It has some sandy-dirty tips, but they don't look cotted and it has a lot of grease in it, but not as much as I had expected, really. The whole mass is just small locks, like the pics show, and the sheared lock ends are all separate and I don't seem to see it in any cohesive bunches. It should be a nice, bright white when washed.

But making lace yarn seems appropriate for such fine stuff, and it would make it go farther. I don't have any wool combs, so that isn't an option for prepping, and I don't have any more $ to spend on new gear. Frankly, I have been gear-deprived all these years, and haven't made an effort to accumulate more... :teehee: Guess I should put stuff on my Xmas list!


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## Pearl B (Sep 27, 2008)

Good luck. It would be so hard to keep my hands off of that stuff. I would wait till I had everything ready too though.


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

On No, not me. I'd have instantly grabbed a bit ,washed in the kitchen and sqished it dry in a towel, Spun up in about 5 min. THEN , I bet it would tell me what it wants to be.


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## hotzcatz (Oct 16, 2007)

You just need a different perspective, it's not expensive. Okay,so, you got a great deal on it for $40 per pound. What's $40 divided by sixteen ounces? It's only $2.50 an ounce! See! Now it's not expensive anymore and you can play with it. (I pay twice that amount for English angora fiber. If I could find a source for English angora at that price, I'd be all over it.)

I would just grab some and spin. What will it look like spun in the grease? The tips look clean enough that they should spin right up. Was the sheep covered? Doesn't look like there's much VM in there at all.

Are you going to blend it with the silk? If you're gonna blend it, then you'd probably need hand cards, a blending board or at least a pair of dog slicker brushes. Although you said you had a drum carder? Why not use it with the fine carding cloth on it? Isn't this fine enough fibers? Well, do a few test samples and see which direction you want to go.

Or catch a few bunnies from your dreams and blend their fiber in there, too! Woot! Hula Bunny yarn is angora/Merino/silk so you could have your own version of it. Oooh, now you can have dreams of the angora bunnies popping up out of your Merino box! Draped in silk shawls!


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## Wind in Her Hair (Jul 18, 2002)

hotzcatz, the only thing to remember about fleeces like merino, cormo, or other greasy fleeces, is that you can lose up to 50% of the weight when you wash and remove the lanolin/grease. Then, depending on how carefully you comb it, you could lose substansially more. This is a precious fleece- not only because of the price she paid for it- but because of its micron count, fineness, and the rarity of such a fine fleece- so caution is advised to make the most of it and I know Lez will do just that.  

Lez, Margaret Stove, the great guru of lace spinning, would have you carefully lay out the locks minding to keep cut ends and end tips all aligned, lay the locks side by side in a packet of "tulle" fabric, sew it shut, and presoak it. The she would have you sink it in hot, uber soapy water- then clear rinses (2 or 30)- then she would strip out the water, roll the tulle bag in a towel, press out the water, then let it dry. Then she would either flick out the locks by hand or each end with a pet brush, then spin from the tip to the cut end - being mindful to keep the locks in lock formation.

Another method she uses is to pre-wet a bar of soap and set it in a plastic soap dish, pinching a lock by the tip end, she dunks a lock in hot water up and down until it is saturated, then she rubs the lock against the bar of soap, first one end and then the other, then she dunks the lock back into hot rinse water, she does this several times until the wool is clean and lays them out on a towel to air dry- again, being mindlful of cut ends and tip ends. This was horrifying to watch the first time I saw it- but she explains that the rubbing with adequate soap will allow the fibers to slide against one another without felting and that she is careful not to shock the fiber by changing the water temp- it is hot throughout.

No reason to think you need combs- you can merely use a cat comb or pet comb to open up the tips - but if you decide you'd like to comb this, just let me know and I will loan you my combs.


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## raccoon breath (Aug 5, 2010)

Iowalez- Bucket of bunnies! lol I had a nest box of bunnies in the kitchen sitting there to lure my escape in close by. Then, I had an old Cheerios box stuffed with hay I was giving them. I look in the kitchen and bunnies have moved the lid containing them in the nest. One is sitting on top of the lid and the rest pouring out. The escapee's behind is hanging out the cheerios box. Ha ha! They've been so much fun!


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