During my declutter of my craft room, it became clear that I’ve got to do something about all the various undyed natural fibers I’ve got in my fiber stash. At one time I was quite obsessed with prepping my own fleece, and that was great for me. However, I am not at that stage in my crafting anymore. In other times, many times really, I have been into making my own batts and rolags. My craft room is absolutely FULL of “hidden” undyed fleece and dyed fiber and add ins for interesting batts and rolags.

This is basically hidden not because I am deliberately hiding it in any way, but because it doesn’t actually reside with the rest of my yarn and fiber stash. In Mr. Ink’s den I have an area where I keep both yarn and dyed prepared fiber. I am so accustomed to walking into that room and choosing something from that cabinet that I never get around to choosing something undyed, and I rarely get around to making new batts or rolags.

So I was able to declutter that craft room to a large extent, but then had a total stall out once I started opening cabinet doors and realizing I had a serious problem with being unable to use up my hidden stash.

I am going to haul it out and present it to you. Not for the purpose of decluttering it, I’ll be keeping most of it. But for the purpose of identifying what I have. And then, once I spin a bump of regular prepared fiber, I need to find a way to move what I have into handspun yarn or into fiber that is prepped/dyed in such a way that it makes it into my regular fiber stash.

Now, I’ve already moved away from dyeing my own fiber. I still have dyes, so I can still dye some of it, but I am done with purchasing new dyes so those colors will be limited. I also only have a crock pot to dye with now, I decluttered the remainder of my dyeing supplies a few years back. It’s just not a passion of mine, and I know I won’t be taking it up with any expertise or intention toward that. But, if I get some of these things dyed, I’ll be able to use them in batts and rolags.

New summer goal for this year, move undyed fiber stash and colorful add ins into my regular fiber stash by making batts or rolags, or make it yarn. Plus, it should make for interesting blogging, right? Anyhow, let’s see what I’ve got going on in my “hidden” stash. (For the record, I’ve been saying for years “it’s not that much.” And it isn’t, for someone who is processing fleece regularly. But when I haven’t touched it in 3 years, it’s suddenly a whole lot!)

Here are two CVM Romeldale fleeces. The one on top is much larger than that on the bottom. They are both washed, as I made sure to wash everything before I moved 3 years ago. It was a wise goal, but it would have been nice to have touched some of this since. Anyhow, these are both pretty full of vegetable matter, they aren’t the best. But they are worth working through I think. There’s a lot of flick carding to be done here! The bottom one isn’t washed in a way that preserved lock structure, I didn’t have that ability at the time I washed it. So there will be a large amount of waste associated with it. The top one less so, As I had created my fleece washing box when I washed that one, and it was in use. The fleece washing box is now long gone, it went to Mr. Ink who took it apart to make a device to sift dirt with. I guess in the end it served its purpose more than once.

This is a Romney fleece, or part of one. It’s one of those situations where one learns to maybe not purchase fleece on the internet unless you really trust the seller. And, maybe to wash a test bit immediately and then see how it goes. I think this fleece is full of scurf. I need to flick card a bit to find out. If it is, this’ll be going in the trash. I have no interest in working through that, despite the fact it is otherwise a gorgeous fleece.

Here’s a whole load of various fibers in various dyed states. More to be dyed, tons to work through and create yarn, or batts, or rolags. This looks pretty overwhelming to me. All that red? It was given to me by one of my international conference attendees. I have decided that I would like to spin some up and give it back to her in October. So, I’ll yank some of that out and spin it up pretty quickly I think. I just have to keep that at the forefront of my brain.

This photo is of a basket of samples. This is super cute because I can see that at some point way back when, I was trying to keep Miss Butterfly occupied by having her make post it notes with the names of the wool on them. This is my project number 1. I will flick card and sample spin some, and the rest I’ll flick card and dye for add ins. Here’s a secret, there’s some in there that are already flick carded! Bonus.

*sigh*

On the left top is the remains of a CVM Romeldale fleece that I purchased and processed. It’s a truly lovely fleece, Much of this fleece was spun into yarn that was used for the edging of my huge lizard ridge blanket:

Other parts of it made it into a dye pot, then into batts that were spun along the way. But I still have quite a lot left because one fleece goes a LONG way. Seriously though, this was one of my favorite fleeces to work with. It was a great investment, even if there’s still some hanging around.

Below that there’s this STUNNING black wool and unfortunately I don’t even remember what it is anymore. It’s definitely a longwool. The white batts are leftovers from a jacob fleece, I processed awhile back, I don’t even know what to do with them anymore. These I tend to hand out pretty freely when someone is learning to spin. All around that are more various samples of things to try and spin.

Guess what? MORE SAMPLES!

This one is from a Corriedale fleece that I spun and knit into a featherweight cardigan. I still have more 2 ply laceweight from this. It’s a beautiful fleece with hints of grey. It’s washed, it’s flick carded, and it would be easy to dye for add ins, but it’s also so pretty that I am not sure I want to. I bet this is one of the last things I work with.

And finally, Border Leicester dyed locks on the left, and angora I cannot use on the right. (I am allergic to angora, not that there’s something wrong with the angora.)

You know, now that I’ve hauled it all out, I think there is quite a lot I’d be ok with parting with. I think tomorrow I should get some weights and post what I’d be willing to part with in case anyone is interested.

In any case, Mr. Ink took a look at all I’d hauled out and raised an eyebrow. I said “I am working on admitting I have a problem.” And he just laughed. That being said, this is mostly a problem I created before he and I moved to the new home, it’s not a problem that has been building over 3 years. So, I don’t think this is a bad habit I have to break. It’s just time to declutter, use, and acknowledge the sunk cost fallacy going on here.