Sassy Cat Crochet

Hello! I am starting a new and wonderfully long journey of turning raw animal fleece into crochet wearables. For quite some time now I have found myself wanting to take part in more ethical ways of creating, though finding an entry point can feel daunting sometimes. Fiber arts has become a significant part of my life, and because of this I have slowly but surely got my foot into this “ethical doorway”. The spinning community specifically has allowed more options than I could ever imagine possible. This first sheep fleece I will be processing is from a lovely 7-year-old merino ewe named Bear. She is a part of a small mixed fiber and meat flock down in Texas. Her fleece is going to be my “test” fleece. I’ll test washing products, combing techniques, washing techniques, new fiber prep tools, and general fiber prep techniques on Bears fleece. I’m very excited about having this test fleece not only to try new things, but to also get a general idea of what I will be committed to for future sheep fleeces. Now the angora fleeces are a different story. Both of the fleeces were purchased from a small family-owned shop called Sinfully Soft. They breed giant angora show rabbits in Roosevelt Washington, with the hope of bringing a revival to these rare and wonderful creatures. I was very excited to make a purchase from her specifically, because she will be teaching a workshop at the Oregon flock and fiber festival. I’m going to try attending the festival this year, and I might even make it to her workshop. We’ll see though. She will also have a booth there at the festival. Processing raw angora rabbit fiber is much easier than processing raw sheep fleece. So, no testing will be necessary luckily. Washing is saved for after the fiber is all spun up. Now that I have my new blending board, I will be able to prep the angora fiber and immediately start spinning. The excitement I hold within me for these opportunities of ethical creating, particularly getting to know where my fiber has come from, is an experience I cannot find words to describe other than purely grateful. This is going to be a multi part series that I will put out updates on monthly. There are a lot of steps to processing different kinds of fleece, so I will do my best to lay out each step with the terminology explained as it comes up. These processing posts might be a bit longer than usual compared to my other posts too. Well, that’s all I have for this post. Bye for now :).

Sass served with every stitch ;)

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