The past couple days have been sunny and warm, perfect fleece washing weather. Unfortunately, they have also been a bit windy, which makes drying fleece outside a problem. I recently found the solution at a local Cheap Stuff From China store, of which there are many all over San Francisco. There was the “Infant Sleeping Tent,” a pop-up mesh tent of sorts. The label has some of the worst Engrish I’ve seen in a while (“To protect baby form bitting by mosquitoes and files” is only a sample) but it’s actually a handy little thing. Don’t know that I’d trust it for use with actual babies, but that’s not my problem. I don’t even remember what I paid for it but I’m going to go back for more. It might have been a buck but certainly not much more. Here’s a picture:
The fleece in there is some of what I got from Forest Home Farms annual shearing party in San Ramon a couple weeks ago. East Bay Mystery Sheep at it’s finest. It’s short and full of kemp but not too dirty. It might be a lamb because it has that curly tip like first fleeces tend to have and it’s fairly soft. From the spongy feel there is obviously some down breed in there (Suffolk?) and a bit of California Red. I figured I’d use it to mess around with some drum carder experiments, although at this point I think it’s getting tossed in the I’ll Card It All Together Eventually pile. There’s a lot of kemp in there and the red hair is not high on my list either.
