I purchased what was advertised as a California Varigated Mutant, (CVM) fleece, last fall at Wisconsin Sheep And Wool Festival. Its unusual to see CVM’s fleeces at this festival and finding it in fantastic shape snapped it up right away.

My first surprise with this fleece is that the lock is fairly unorganized. This personally sends up a red flag. According to the breed standard: The wool should have a well defined crimp from base to tip with no kemp or hair present. While, the fleece is free from kemp and hair, and the crimp is deep, the hand is also more “crisp” then I would expect from its heritage as well as being coarser. So I started working the fleece with a critical eye.

The fluffy rolags worked up nicely. It had been coated and was virtually free of vegetable matter. But the fleece appeared to be sunburned in that it much lighter on the tips. This turned out to be brittle and created neps in the rolag.

And here is a woolen yarn spun from the rolags. Neps and all.

Combing it produced a much smoother, easier to draft product…but the hand once again was not correct. It still felt more like a down breed than what CVM should feel like.

The yarn worked up nicely though.

Overall I think we are going to do this exercise over again. My determination is that this is a CVM cross fleece, probably crossed with a down breed. I will now search for either a Romeldale or CVM fleece from a registered animal. Don’t get me wrong, this is a very nice fleece, it is just does not appear to be from a purebred CVM.

Now for the obligatory puppy update!

Mas is 9 weeks old now and is doing well. Eating well and even training is going well. He is a little Houdini though! He can escape from the kitchen in about 2 seconds given the chance. We will be working through Sue Ailsby’s Training Levels for his basic training with additional training for specific sports, like agility.

Now I’m off to play with my puppy. After he is asleep I’ll spin for the Tour De Fleece!

Big Runs Llanka Masi

He is here, the Australian Shepherd puppy formerly known as Oxley. He is now called Big Runs Llanka Masi (pronounced yon-ka mossy), Mas for short. His name means “work sharer” and many many thanks to Abby for translating my ideas to Quechua.

He’s just over 8 weeks old. Currently none of the dogs are telling me to send him back, but that may change. Luke and Adam don’t care for puppies, Daisy loves them as long as they don’t run. Danny and Roo appear to be my main puppy-raisers, good, fair and don’t over correct. I realize now that its been almost nine years since I had a puppy that young. Adam was a good 6 weeks older when he came home.

The boy has the attention span of a gnat. As you can see in the picture, he is struggling to go exploring. On his first full day living with us he got to meet people and dogs at an agility trial. He got to meet his sires owner as well as a couple of my agility instructors and a keeshond. Also I can get about 4-5 clicks in before he is off to find something else to do.

Both parents are titled in agility, obedience and rally. His dam, Sera, is a registered therapy dog and is titled in rally, obedience, and agility. His sire, Ace, is titled in agility, obedience, rally and herding.

I’m surprised he hasn’t discovered that the shelties have tails. But the shelties can take care of themselves and they will let him know that biting Sheltie tails get little Aussie puppies in trouble. If you would like to view the entire set of pictures you can find them here. And here are the pictures of the litter as they were growing up.

Well, it sure looks like we won’t be trialling outside in the heat of summer. He already shows a preference for keeping cool. But then again, what do you expect from a black dog?

And now for my Tour De Fleece update…

I’m working on what I have been working on for the past week.

Spinning my Pumpkin Juice batts from my Enchanted Knoll Happy Hooves Sock Batt Club. I am working toward a three ply unlike I have spun before. From here I will continue with some Spunky Eclectic fiber that has been waiting patiently for me to spin it.

Oh yeah batt love!

Let’s just see if I can spin every day of the Tour…one down, 24 to go…

Yesterday Jer and I went geocaching in downtown Chicago. Most of it was pretty normal geocaching. We started with brunch at Frontera Grill. I managed to actually get a reservation there much to my shock and ended up getting there late due to the flakiness of the weather and inability to hail a cab. I had a lovely brunch of Indigenous Hotcakes with chile glazed bacon and eggs over easy while Jer was unable to find anything he liked so settled for Tacos al Carbon. After that geocaching started in earnest. Mostly virtual caches. Near one of the micros we found there was a new statue.

A striking image of Shakesphere’s King Lear.

We finished the virtuals on Michigan Ave and then struck out for Navy Pier. It took us longer than it should thanks to everyone and their brother was taking the free trolley. There were two caches to find out there though. The one I liked the best was honoring Milton Olive III who unselfishly gave his life for his companions during Viet Nam. A very peaceful park near the hustle and bustle of Navy Pier is named for him. Well worth the trip.

By this time we were pretty tired so after looking at the line for the trolley we looked at each other and grabbed a cab to Millennium Park to find the virtual there.

Cloud Gate (aka The Bean) is a very fascinating statue and it attracts all types, including zombies it appears. There were more people (and zombies) crowded around it than there were people around Buckingham Fountain over in Grant Park.

We could see evidence of the upcoming Taste of Chicago. Roads were already blocked off, tents being erected. But there was still echos of past events present.

Like a ghost the tenor of the day was starting to change as our last cache was at The Sears Tower.

During 2000 and 2001 I worked a total of ten months in the tower, on the 6th floor. I had never actually been higher then about the 33rd floor. Now almost eight years later I was returning to the tower. The walk was filled with memories. Places I ate, The Board Of Trade, DePaul University, new shops, echos of a world pre-911.

There were no metal detectors when I worked, there. But there are now. And the new management company is handling the property better than the one when I was there. Gone are the days when you could cut through the tower in inclement weather to get to Union Station. But the journey at hand was now to the top. Through metal detectors, long lines, and an elevator ride that mirrored those I had when I actually worked there. We emerged on the Skydeck, perhaps with stuffed up ears. The information needed was gathered, the gift shop avoided as best as we could and we descended to head home on the train.

Ghosts of the time still echo through my brain, even today. I never want to have to live through the 14 hour days, the tension of a company sinking fast, and the events that unfolded not two weeks after my last time walking out of the tower ever again.

DSC_0759

Originally uploaded by morgsarah

California Variegated Mutant, also called CVM, is a naturally colored variation of Romedale. The Romeldale started in 1915 as a cross between Ramboullet ewes and Romney rams imported from New Zealand. The breed was developed to produce fine, high yielding wool with a better carcass quality than other whiteface breeds found in the western US.

During the 1960’s multi-colored lambs started showing up in a flock of Romeldale. During the next 15 years the breed was developed as a closed flock. In 1982 the flock was disbursed and purchased by several breeders in California. Unfortunately, not all wool listed as CVM is actually CVM. Some farms have crossed other breeds with their Romeldale/CVMs and the badger pattern is a common pattern found in many sheep breeds including Shetland, Icelandic and Karakul.

CVM is found in many shades of moorit to brown to grey and but they must have the classic barred faced badger pattern . Any other pattern or spotting without the badger pattern is considered a naturally colored Romeldale. The wool is fine with a micron count from 24-22, comparable to coarse merino or very very fine corriedale. This wool will find many uses, everything from soft socks to scarves and even baby wear if the fleece is fine enough.

I must be smoking something really interesting yesterday as I decided to join the Tour de Fleece on July 5th.  I am getting my new puppy on July 4th.  Someone talk some sense into me!

As I mentioned in the previous installment, Cotswold is sometimes called poor mans mohair.

Here are some dyed locks of Cotswold. You can choose to dye them yourself, or buy them from a number of on-line sources. These I dyed myself with Easter egg dyes.

I chose three preparations for these locks. Flicked tips only, carded and combed.

Here are the undyed locks with the tips flicked open.

Here is the yarn from the flicked locks. They retained more vegetable matter than I was happy with. But if the locks were cleaner to begin with this is a perfectly lovely way to prepare Cotswold. In fact those dyed locks would look great spun up this way.

Here is the carded Cotswold. I used medium handcards to prepare these.

And here is the yarn spun from it. It’s about the same grist as the yarn spun from the locks, but is more consistent.

And combed Cotswold. For these I used my two row Viking style combs. By far this was the cleanest preparation of the three. Though the carded fiber didn’t have near as much as just the flicked locks.

This stuff spun like butter. I was able to easily spin it finer and more even.

As far as what I would use Cotswold for. Blankets, outerwear and other items not for next to skin wear. Individual fleeces can vary but I would not plan a knitted scarf made of Cotswold if I didn’t have a washed sample of the fiber in hand. Ladies, one “convenient” place to check and see if a wool is good for next to the skin wear is to stick it in your bra and see how it feels after being there a while. A spun and knitted sample is best. Men, you are on your own. I’m not sure I feel qualified to recommend a place for men to check out fibers.

Cotswold is one of those fibers that with planning, preparation and a little whimsy can exceed expectations.  Take it for a spin and see what shows up on your bobbin.

In a moment of weakness I signed up for SOAR 2008.  In reality I will not have near enough vacation time this year to go so I had to cancel my reservation.  I’m sure I made someone on the wait list very happy.  But this way I’ll be able to do more things with Jer and the dogs. 

I’m back and boy was that a trip. I’m just a little slow getting this up….

May 29th, Jer and I packed up three of the dogs and headed east to Mason, MI for the 2008 Canine Performance Events (CPE) Nationals. Danny had earned enough legs to qualify, Roo did not. But he and Adam came along for the ride. Luke and Daisy went to the “spa” for the extended weekend. Adam really wanted to just stay home, not go to the “spa” and certainly not go to the Nationals with the rest of us.

We had gone once before in 2005 aka the year from h*ll. I was an emotional mess and facing surgery for possible cancer, our van was rear ended on the way to the trial and I had a follow up mammogram scheduled for the next week…believe me it was not conducive to concentrating on agiliity! This year I promised myself to make it up to Danny….sigh…

It was a fine example of good dog, bad handler. Friday was really bad, we qualified in Wildcard, but we were not even on the same planet for standard and fullhouse. Saturday I wasn’t much better but we did manage to qualify in standard. Finally on Sunday for colors and snooker I got my act together only to screw up again in standard.

Jer played photographer and got some good shots of Danny doing what he loves.

I have always said that he did rally and obedience for me, but does agility for himself.

Roo enjoyed time walking with me. Meeting other dogs and most of all puppies! He gets so excited when he sees puppies. For Adam we just worried about bodily functions and some basics. Does he feel safe enough to go potty, to eat in his crate? To walk into the buildings? I didn’t push Adam, but I also didn’t let him drag me back to the crating area when he got scared until I was ready to. He wasn’t over his limit though.

I did manage to spin a little when not working the trial or running my dog or shopping. I did some damage at the vendors there. My credit card is still sobbing. But I got some very interesting rally and agility equipment that I can use to train in my basement and that travels really well. The company is called Pac ‘N Go. The stuff will need staking when used outside. Seriously, you could carry the dog, the equipment and yourself in a Mini Cooper!

On Monday we headed to Howell to The Spinning Loft for some additional retail therapy of the fiber variety. Beth got to try my Lendrum and I got to try the new Louet Julia….oh my gosh…. No raw fleece followed me home, but I did lead Beth off the edge and forced her to buy two corriedale fleeces. AND she had fresh Abby Batts that were not online yet. I nabbed sock batts and some lovely yellow batts….mmmmmmm……

See what I mean?

Yeah, life is good. I had the privilege of stepping up to the start line with my 9 year agility partner at another National. Laughed with old friends, made new ones and finally met a cyberfriend of many years!

Abby had memed me.  Since I’m still working on the next Cotswold post the timing is good for such a post.

Okay first the rules:

“The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.”

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?

My nephew had just been born!  And man could he scream.  Turns out he had reflux.  My poor sister really learned the meaning of the term “sleep deprivation”.   I’m surprised she ever agreed to have another child.

Also, about six months previously I had adopted Patches, an Australian Shepherd, from my sister in law.  Ten years ago in June I was preparing to go to the first Camp Shirley put on by M. Shirley Chong.  I won’t go into the details but I learned a lot and found some long time friends there.  Sadly, Shirley is pretty much retired due to ill health but the lessons learned at camp live on through my dogs today and into the future.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order):

A) Run reports for work (DONE!)

B) Update Geocaching Swiss Army Knife (GSAK) with the latest cache information and load information into GPSr’s. 

C) Groom dogs for going to the  CPE Nationals.  Tonails need trimmed, and coats need brushed in preparation for the trial.  Grooming to make sure that feet don’t slip on the equipment.

D) Make dinner <groan>  I never have any idea what to make for dinner.  At least today I have hamburger thawed out to  use.

E) Pack wheel for weekend.  I plan to take my Lendrum wheel with me and spend some time spinning when not either working the trial or running Danny.

3. Snacks I enjoy:

Ah, let’s see…..

Pretzels, good pretzels like they make in Shipshewana, IN.  Not too greasy, and not frozen/thawed bowling alley pretzels.

Chocolate, dark dark chocolate.  My current favorite is Green and Black’s Maya Gold.

Almond butter  I’m allergic to peanuts so almond butter is a godsend to replace peanut butter in my life.

Fresh baked bread-no matter what flavor.

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

1) Pay off my debt and my house

2) Invest a sizable portion.

3) Sell paid off house and buy a house and pole barn in a nearby county.

4) Take care of my mom and mil to make sure their needs are met.

5) Quit my job and train dogs for a living, if only my own dogs.

6) By an RV set up specifically for traveling with the dogs.

5. Places I have lived:

Oh geez, compared to Abby I’m pretty boring. 

I lived the first 18 years of my life in Camby, IN, then went to college at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN.

I then took off to grad school (the first time through) in El Paso, TX for three long years.  Other than me getting married during that time, I would prefer to forget most of it.  Then I move to the swamps of NE Illinois and love being back in the Midwest.  Once back I was able to finish my masters degree and really learned to spin well.

6. Peeps I want to know more about:

I have to think about this.  So many of the people I want to know more about have already been recently picked.

Cotswold Sheep always remind me of Chi.

Originally uploaded by sarah.eyre

Cotswold gets it’s name from the Cotswold area of England near the border of Wales. The name cotswold comes from the shelters or “cotes” for the sheep. There are several versions of the development of the breed. The breed as it stands today was imported into the US early in the 19th century and has been used to crossbreed to produce large framed lambs for market. The breed is also believed to be related to long wooled sheep the Romans brought up to England.

Longwools have been used over the years to produce fabrics for outerwear, upholstry and blankets as well as for floor coverings. As synthetic fibers have replaced wool for these uses, the importance of Cotswold and other longwool breeds has driven these breeds to become endangered. According to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, Cotswold are considered a threatened livestock breed.

The sheep themselves are large, polled breed. Ewes weighing 200 pounds while the rams can be upwards of 300 pounds. The breed has naturally colored individuals within its gene pool with shades that range from black to light grey. The locks have been referred to as poor mans mohair because the fiber has a nice bit of luster.

Don’t be afraid of longwools, give cotswold a try and let it surprise you.

I’m going to tackle this one fiber at a time so hang on for the ride.

Vicuña fiber that is coming into the US typically has a staple length less than 1″.

What you are seeing is 2/10 of an ounce of vicuña. This will be spun on a charka, which is particularly good for dealing with really short fibers.

This is the first vicuña yarn I made. Spun on a charka, plied on a light top whorl spindle. Not much yardage, but considering it costs around $300 oz you are not going to make a shawl out of it unless you have very deep pockets.

In contrast guanaco costs a paltry $30 oz.

This is a lighter colored dehaired guanaco, it also is a bit washed out by the flash and no matter how I adjusted it came out lighter than in real life. Its staple is longer, but more like somewhere between 1-2″ long.

Here is some spindle spun guanaco in the darker color. It turned out to be the perfect travel project as I could take a few tufts of guanaco and spin for a long time while at a dog show.

Just to compare, here is a picture of the guanaco (about 1 ounce skein) next to the tiny sample of vicuña.

Now you get a better idea about how much is there of each.

The prep for both the vicuña and guanaco is simply spinning directly from the “cloud” of fiber, You could card either one or blend it with another fiber, but for these yarns I chose not to.

The paco-vicuña was a gift from Toni. Yes the fiber than has been on walkabout. I guess all I need to do to scare something out of hiding is blog about it being missing.

I washed it and then decided to both comb and card samples of it similar to what I have been doing with my wool fleeces.

The samples were carded with cotton carders so I created no additional neps other than what was already there.

Not the smoothest preparation and there is a small number of guard hairs scattered throughout. I didn’t try to remove. If I was spinning for a project I certainly would try to remove them.

Here is the finished skein. Not terribly lumpy and bumpy, but hard to spin much thinner.

The combed fiber produced a lot of “waste”. And at $25 to $30 oz for raw it can add up to a considerable amount of weight. The preparation was much smoother and since it had a staple length of between 2 and 3 inches it was not that hard to comb and pull off a bit of top.

The yarn spun was a bit finer, not a whole lot as I used the same spindle, a Bosworth Featherweight, to spin both samples. If I took more time I could have spun much finer.

I’ve been overwhelmed with visits and comments since Stephanie Pearl-McPhee aka The Yarn Harlot posted about Sheepwreck in her blog. Thanks everyone for stopping by and visiting. And Steph thank YOU for coming to Madison.

Believe it or not, I originally planned to go to the Madison event. I live about 10 miles south of the Illinois/Wisconsin state line. It is quicker for me to drive US 12 to Madison, than to try and thread my way through Chicagoland traffic to get to Oak Lawn. I have traveled that route many times for flyball tournaments. And despite having grown up in Indianapolis, Madison feels more like home to me than the suburbs of Chicago. I think I just miss living in a college town.

Knitting “Camp” (actually it was officially a workshop) was very important to me. It was not sock knitting, but EPS (Elizabeth Percentage System). It was a safe camp for me to attend as it was a lot of stuff I knew already punctuated by things I didn’t. It also met my long time yearning to go to one of Meg’s camps. Will I go back? Perhaps one day, I have not decided yet. It is certainly worth it.

BTW, keep an eye on this link for some future news of the herding crew. Pictures will be updated on a periodic basis. (Yes they are Australian Shepherds not guinea pigs.)

Camp was over too soon.

Saturday night brought us Joyce Williams. So on Sunday she brought her own personal trunk show to wow us.

Look at the way those buttons are attached to each other.

Latvian braid flanking a color pattern.

Can you see how the stitches were picked up with the pattern continuing on.

Armenian knitting not intarsia.

Fair Isle sweater using corrugated ribbing.

If our minds were not already full on Saturday, they certainly were now.

Meg tirelessly explains sweater planning and construction in order to make the sweaters actually fit.

Too soon it was time to go and I said my goodbyes to Amy and Meg.

I’m so happy and thrilled to have been there. Annette, was right…I needed to go to camp.

Oh, I did not forget geocaching on the way home!

I mean, where else could you find out where the middle of Wisconsin is! This is the marker for the center of the state in Pittsville.

One last image I’ll leave you with. Elizabeth left many things behind, but this one struck me.

Yes the Babcock, WI Post Office. Many a package was sent to many a knitter through there.

Thanks again to Meg, Amy, Joyce, and the crew at Schoolhouse Press. Knitting camp exceeded my expectations, by many factors and in many ways.