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A day late with free fiber

6/1/2013

 
    Today is going crazy... First we survived last night's storms!  This is a good thing but that made my next BIG thing late and now that same thing is interupted again by the fact that B'Day, the Cow, is going to give birth.  I brought her out of the pasture and she has discharge so she is penned up with Libby the other cow who is also due anytime now.  Mom and I have a bet about who will birth first.  I say B'day and Mom says Libby.  With any luck it will be the easiest buck I ever made.
    So What is our next big thing?  Well, it involves free fiber ... That is a good thing right?  Okay, so here it goes.  First, you have to understand that we have a few sheep here on the farm that are not part of the fiber farm.  They are sheep that came to us as bottle babies and have for whatever reason stayed on.  Why would we do that??  Well, for one they are little ones that come to Mom's farm.  Sometimes they are returned to their owners when they get healthy and big.  Sometimes I show them and some times they are sold.  Sometimes Mom buys them out right and then has no plan but to save them and see where it goes.  Well, most of the time I blog about these animals as they are fun and different when they come in. 
    Anyway, we do have a few sheep that have come in just that way and this time around Mom had them Sheared by Danny our Fiber shearer.  Well, she decided that she would keep their fleece to "play with".  Well, Yesterday after Mom got home from work we went into the fiber room and "played"  We got some shetland that Mom had washed all sorted and carded and I will be putting it in the Etsy shop soon.  Then we found a fleece that Mom had deamed a "play" fleece.  She had washed a bit of it but never got around to doing anything with it.  So I convinced her to card it up and we did. 
    That led to us learning that we really liked the feel of this fleece and man was it soft.  Please keep in mind that this is junk wool as we call it.  Mom and I are even thinking you might be able to consider it a next to the the skin kind of soft.  This the were it gets interesting.  First, I decided we needed more research done on this fleece.  And how do you do research on a fleece.  Well, you get it into the hands of spinners like you...  I am going to make some of  you a deal.  I am going to see if there are some people ... spinners to be exact, that want to take part in a Mystery Sheep Research project.  Let me be very up front with you.  This fleece is not a fleece from the QTs.  The Qts have not even been sheared yet.  These sheep are not fiber sheep at all.  
    So how is this going to work?  Well, there are just a few rules to play by:
        1.  You would have to join our Ravelry group and leave input on the Mystery Wool thread at least twice.
        2.  You would also have to fill out a info sheet for us and either mail it back or email it to us
        3.  You have to be able to forgive VM.  
        4.  You may not speculate about the wool or discuss it on the blog or any other social media.  The ravelry thread will be the only place this wool is discussed.  
        5.  You must do all this within a month of getting your fleece.  

    Why is the third rule even spoken?  Well, these are not sheep we ever try to keep VM out of.  They are used for other things and wool was never our intention so we didn't care if there was VM in the fleece or not as it was going to be trashed anyway.  If we are to use the wool for anything later we would take care of the VM issue but we don't want it to be any part of the reseach.  Your skill level doesn't matter either as we want beginners, intermediates and experienced spinners alike.  
    What do you get in return for your time??  Well, you get to keep what you spin and you will get a discount code for the Etsy store so that when we start posting yarn and fiber (that is due back from the mill any day now) you can get it at a savings.  So how do you get in on this little Mystery wool research Project?  That is the easy part ... All you have to do is comment here with your spinning skill level and we will put your name in the hat for the "job"  Within the next two weeks we will contact you for your mailing information if you get the job.  I am sorry but we will have to limit the number of spinners per a level of experience so make sure you get your name in early. 
  


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