Needle Felting Wool For Sale

I am excited to introduce a new product line...

Needle Felting Wool and Wool Locks...

all 100% Shetland Wool, of course!

Large bags (sandwich size filled up) are available in a variety of single colors or multi-color packs 

 $6.50 + S&H.  MN sales tax also applies to orders shipped to MN residents.

Small bags (approximately 1/3 sandwich bag size) are $4.50 + S&H.

MN sales tax applies to all MN sales.

Wool Locks are also available.  Small bags are $2.50.  Large bags are $5.00.

Again, S&H applies as well as MN sales tax to MN residents.

To give you an idea of how much lock wool is in a small bag...small bags contain enough locks to make beards for 3+ dolls with "barbie doll" sized heads.  I hope that makes sense.   

At this time, the locks are only sold in single colors, but multi-color packs can be shipped upon request.

If you have any questions or wish to order wool, please contact me at

sabrinalea19@yahoo.com

All of the above products are also available locally in downtown Bemidji at

YARN DANCE

on 15th ST & Paul Bunyan DR.

Prices at the shop and direct from Boston Lake Farm are the same.

I would like to thank Patty at Yarn Dance for encouraging me to produce this product line and for offering it through her beautiful shop.  Please stop by Yarn Dance and discover all the gorgeous yarns and fiber-crafting supplies Patty carries for fiber enthusiasts!

Carding a Gray Katmoget

The fleece pictured below came from Sextant...one of the lambs I sent to the processor in October.  It is a 6 month old lamb fleece...with a 1.5-2.5 inch staple.  Deliciously fine and very crimpy.

I decided to card the darkest locks up first.  Sextant was a dark katmoget...all his underbelly black had been skirted away.  The only true "black" locks in these batts came from the bit of stripe under his neck.  The rest of the dark came from his regular fleece.  Below are the batts after the first run through the drum carder. 

For the second pass through the carder I divided each batt into 2 or 3 sections and carded them separately.  The lighting for this photo is completely different...but you can still see there is a very distinct gradient.  I love how much variety a black katmoget fleece can give.  And I especially love the blue color!

I am dissatisfied with all the noils in these lamb fleeces I've been carding up recently.  The lambs were coated, and the very tippy-tip of the locks seems to be the source of the noils.  I don't expect it to matter much since this wool is intended for felting.  But if the locks had been longer and intended for spinning, I believe combing each lock would have been a better way to process the fleece.

Recommended Reading

A fellow Shetland breeder posted an article on his blog that I feel is worth reading. 

The information explains many of the reasons that I am raising the type of sheep and fleece that I do...

only the author expresses his ideas so much better than I could.  :)

A huge THANK YOU to Rich Johnson at

Whispering Pines 

for writing such an elegant article.

and just incase the above link doesn't work, here is the complete url:

http://whisperingpinesshetlands.blogspot.com/2011/12/fleece-clinic-ii.html

Felted Junco - Female

This evening I created a little brown mate for the male junco from yesterday.   It may not be clear in the photo, but the brown lines are actually thin wisps of moorit yarn. 

I used a completely different photograph to guide me...it had more detail...which I think I tried too hard to represent.  I think the tail was more accurate on the male.  

Oh, well. I'm having so much fun.  :)

Felted Junco - Male

Needle felting is fast becoming one of my favorite crafts.

Last night I was stuck for inspiration when Clancy suggested a bird.  So I got out the field guide and settled on the male junco since it has a soft rounded shape without too many details.  It took me about two hours to make the bird and then the little nest with eggs.

Note of inaccuracy: male juncos do not incubate the eggs, only the females do.

The hardest part for me was getting the eyes to look realistic.  I'm not 100% pleased with them...but I decided to stop before I really messed them up.

In my opinion, this little felted bird looks the most realistic from the underside.  Unfortunately, I've seen a few juncos hit the window glass, or get offered up by the resident cat.

I had so much fun with this little bird, and I'll definitely try to do more.  I would like to get some black wire to make little feet in the future.

In the meantime, this little guy will have to snuggle into the nest I made for him.



Felted Flower

Yesterday, on a whim, I decided to make felt for the first time.  I had only a vague idea of how to do this based on some other blogs I had read.  And except for the wool, water, and soap, I didn't have any of the "supplies" that supposedly make the process easier.  Bubble wrap is somehow involved, but I substituted a strange crinkly cellophane from my wrapping paper stash.  Then there was the plastic trash sack spread out on the counter top.  And a bakers rack to lift the felt out of the water and dry it on.  As it turned out, most of the felting ended up happening in the sink, since it was a small batch....only one bat's worth of wool.

In the spirit of Red Green's "any tool can be the right tool" I forged ahead, trusting hot water and agitation to do most of the work.  And it did, though I could have "agitated" it all a bit longer, I think.  In the end I had an uneven sheet of loose felt about the size of a regular sheet of paper.  Hurray!

Because it was so thin and loose, the felt dried quickly.  So I grabbed the scissors and started cutting up flower petals.  Some needle felting and pale yarn accents was all it took to create this 7 inch diameter flower. 

My first attempt at a three-dimensional felted object isn't quite what I hoped it would be.  The gray lamb's wool wasn't blended well on the carder so it sort of resembles dryer lint.  And I had to bolster the wet-felting process a tad here and there with needle-felting.  But all in all, it was easy, quick, and fun....and it does actually resemble a flower.  :)

As I always tell folks that are curious about working with wool:  "Just go for it!"  Wool is incredibly forgiving.  The most inexperienced spinner can still make chunky-fun yarn that knits up wonderfully.  And needle-felting seems to be able to fix what a novice's wet-felting process lacks. 
I can't wait to try more projects with the lambs wool I harvested this fall!

Bright Sunday

It is 43 degrees F outside today.  Unreal!  Hardly a trace of snow.  Not a typical December...but Clancy is  getting lots of outdoor work done.  Sort of the winter equivalent of "make hay while the sun shines."

Because it has just been too long since I've taken any sheep pictures, here are a few.  Sorry about the harsh lighting...

River Oaks Lana.

Lana's ewe lamb by LittleRedOak Ash: Penelope.  I still can't touch Pen.  But she is coming in much closer now, as long as other sheep are crowded around me.  I think this eweling is so beautiful and correct...it just drives me nuts that she is not tame yet.  I so want to get my hands on her fleece again.

The last two pictures are of Sian's twins by Ash.  They have scadder around their necks like their dam and grand-dam, Rachel, did.  None of the other lambs this year had it.  I don't mind it...though I wouldn't select for it.  When I get back into breeding again, I will see if aiming for finer fleece and/or the polled gene eliminates this trait.  I'm really hoping these two girls got some polled genetics from their sire.  Sian had horned genetics...but she had a non-fading fleece, a nice shape, good feet, and a hardiness about her that I liked.  I'm fond of my original Rachel line...so these little sweety pies will hopefully carry that forward into a polled generation.

Jane

Francesca