First of all, it occurs to me that if I wove in my ends right away, not only would I have ends woven in at the end of the project, but my pictures would also look tidier.

As for the spinning, I purchased some merino wool at the IA Sheep and Wool festival last year. I traded half of an 8 oz. bump with my friend Carin, and spun the remainder into a 3 ply yarn. The wool came from Dubinsky Originals, which I didn’t see an online site for, so I can’t link it. There was some….oddness about it. A section was rather odd feeling. Not felted, but it didn’t feel right, like it had something in it. When I spun it, it didn’t draft out properly, and when I did force it to draft, little tufts of some sort of powder flew into the air. I was concerned that this was dye that hadn’t washed out, but I had no dye on my hands. When I washed it, I ended up with a cloudy yellowish water, it took 2 washes and a rinse. My theory is that it was either dirty, or they were using some sort of thickener in the dye that didn’t rinse out quite right. It did make a pretty yarn though! I’ve got 340 yards of a sport to DK weight yarn. This one is already spoken for, goes to my friend Melissa who kindly watched Bug last week for me while I worked!