Giveaway Winners!

Drum roll please!  Here are the winners for our three big giveaways.

 1 bar of sheep's milk soap goes to:

• Brooke
• Natural Garden
• Susie
• Ackermari
• Daneen

The Icelandic fleece goes to:

• Sleepypinesaz

And last but not least, the hand spun, hand knitted scarf goes to:

• Zoe

Many thanks to all who participated!  Winners---please email me your contact info so I can send you your prizes!

Don't Forget to Enter our THREE Free Giveaways!

Time is running out to enter our three big giveaways!  To enter, all you have to do is go to the appropriate blog post for the prize you want to win and comment on that post.  Only one entry per giveaway, but you can enter all three giveaways if you want:

Free Sheep's Milk Soap Giveaway  <---Click on this link, then post a comment.
I said I'd give away free bars of sheep's milk soap to five people if my soap making project on Kickstarter met its funding goal.  The project met its goal in just over a week, so this giveaway is definitely happening.  I'll give everybody one more week to enter, then I'll announce the winners on November 1.

 

Free Icelandic Fleece Giveaway <---Click on this link, then post a comment.
I said I'd give away this lovely Icelandic sheep's fleece when my farm's Facebook page reached 1,000 fans.  We're at 990 fans now, so we only need 10 more to go before this giveaway happens.

Free Handspun Wool Scarf Giveaway  <---Click on this link, then post a comment.
I said I'd give away this hand spun, hand knitted scarf when my farm's Facebook page reached 1,000 fans.  We're at 990 fans now, so we only need 10 more to go before this giveaway happens.

Don't miss your chance to win.  Enter today!

Tansy's Golden Fleece

I've been trying and trying to take some photos of Tansy in full fleece before I shear her, because she looks absolutely spectacular this fall.  But so far, none of the pictures I've taken do justice to how she looks in reality.  Every time she walks by me, I just stop and catch my breath and say, "Ooohhh, Tansy!" because she has such a stunning fleece. 

Of course, she has always had a great fleece, but this year it's really something special.  It hangs down to her ankles in these pale, shining, golden waves, and I already know from previous years how soft and rich it's going to be.

Part of me can't wait to shear her, to harvest that magnificent crop of wool she's produced.  And part of me hates to shear her because she looks so perfect right now.

Free Handspun Wool Scarf Giveaway

Here's giveaway #2:

When the farm's Facebook page reaches 1,000 fans, I'm also going to give away this handspun, hand knitted scarf.

The scarf is made of pure, undyed Icelandic sheep's wool from this beautiful ewe named Urbana:

The scarf is about 5" wide and 5' long, not counting the fringe.  It is 100% factory-free.  Every step of its creation, from the birth of the sheep to the shearing, washing, carding, and spinning of the wool into yarn, to the knitting of the finished scarf was all done by hand, by me, right here on the farm.

To enter, all you have to do is comment on this blog post! 


But remember, the giveaway happens once our farm's Facebook page reaches 1,000 fans (as of this writing we have just 74 more to go to get there).  Help us reach our goal by forwarding this page to your friends and family, Tweeting about this giveaway, posting a link to this page on your own blog or Facebook wall, etc., and then the giveaway will happen sooner.

If you're the "crafty" sort and would love to make your own scarf (or sweater, or...)  make sure to check out our Free Icelandic Fleece Giveaway too.

One entry per person for each giveaway, but you can enter all three giveaways if you like:


Free Icelandic Fleece Giveaway
Free Handspun Wool Scarf Giveaway (this page)
Free Sheep's Milk Soap Giveaway

Free Icelandic Fleece Giveaway

Okay, so here's giveaway #1.

When the farm's Facebook page reaches 1,000 fans, I'm going to give away this beautiful Icelandic fleece: 

 
It's an entire raw fleece, weighing 3 lbs. 5 oz.  Retail value, $40.  It came from this lovely spotted ewe named Mona, and is a mix of creamy white and chocolate brown wool.

The fleece is suitable for either felting or spinning.  You can separate the two colors for a brown and white project, or blend them together for a more "heathered" shade.  There's enough here to make an entire sweater, or other good-sized project.

To enter, all you have to do is comment on this blog post! 

But remember, the giveaway happens once our farm's Facebook page reaches 1,000 fans (as of this writing we have just 74 more to go to get there).  Help us reach our goal by forwarding this page to your friends and family, Tweeting about this giveaway, posting a link to this page on your own blog or Facebook wall, etc., and then the giveaway will happen sooner.

If you're not the "crafty" sort, don't worry, there's a giveaway for you too.  I'm also giving away a handspun, hand knitted scarf in my next blog post.

One entry per person for each giveaway, but you can enter all three giveaways if you like:

Free Icelandic Fleece Giveaway (this page)
Free Handspun Wool Scarf Giveaway
Free Sheep's Milk Soap Giveaway

So Many New Projects!

Have you seen?  I've been a very, very busy girl lately, with several big projects to help promote the farm.

First, I finally finished doing a total redesign of the farm's web site.  Not only does it have a whole new look, it also has more than twice as much information about (and pretty pictures of) the farm.  The address is still the same:  http://inglesideicelandics.com/.

The redesign took me forever, and I'm very pleased with the results.  I think it gives a much fuller picture of who we are, what we're doing, and where we hope to go from here.

Second, I've launched a project with Kickstarter.com to raise funds to get the equipment and supplies necessary to start making all of my luscious sheep's milk soap right here on the farm instead of hiring an outside crafter to make it for me.  I'm pretty excited about this, especially since the soaps have become our most popular product.  I just shipped my first order of soaps to Japan, where the charming buyer pronounced them "very splendid."  Isn't that sweet?

I've also been working on increasing our fan base on the farm's Facebook page.  I'm so honored that more than 900 people count themselves among our fans already!  I have so much fun interacting with the people there and sharing bits of daily life from the farm .

To celebrate all these projects, and express my appreciation for all the fans and customers who help make it all possible, I've decided to do not one, not two, but THREE big giveaways.

To keep the entries for the giveaways separate, I'm going to give details of them in three separate blog posts, coming right up:

Free Icelandic Fleece Giveaway
Free Handspun Wool Scarf Giveaway
Free Sheep's Milk Soap Giveaway

Quilt Project, Part 2: Fiber Preparation

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm making a handspun, handwoven quilt for a customer, doing all the steps myself, from sheep to finished product.

After finalizing the design and selecting which fleeces I will use, the next step is to prepare the wool for spinning.  This is the most time-consuming and tedious of all the steps, but it's crucial, because the wool doesn't exactly come off the sheep all clean and ready to spin. 

Sheep live outside.  They lie down on the ground.  They rub up against trees.  They stroll through patches of tall grass and weeds.  So naturally, their wool picks up some dirt and debris:  seeds, twigs, bits of chaff, dust, thorns, etc.  The same lanolin in the wool that helps protect the sheep from the weather also helps small bits of debris stick to the fleece. 

So, it's important to prep the fiber thoroughly to remove all the debris, so none of it ends up in the final product.

For the past few days, I've been working on preparing Urbana's lamb fleece, which is truly luscious.  Very soft and rich, with a beautiful luster.  Here's what it looked like while Urbana was still wearing it.  This photo was taken about a month before she was sheared.  From a distance, she looks pretty clean, right?

This is what the fleece looked like after it was sheared.  If you look closely, you can see all the little bits of VM (vegetable matter) that are caught in the wool.

Picking out all the VM is a tedious, time-consuming task, that requires a lot of patience and attention to detail.  Each individual lock of wool, out of an entire garbage bag full of fleece, must be examined. 

I grasp each lock by the outer ends, give it a good shake to dislodge any second cuts (small bits of wool that were accidentally cut short on shearing day), then spread the fibers out and pick out any debris, from burrs or thistle pods all the way down to tiny flecks of dirt that are smaller than the head of a pin.  Sometimes I hold the tuft of wool up to the light to check for debris I have missed.  Sometimes I lay the tuft against my leg and brush it with a flick carder to dislodge the last few crumbs.

It took me three afternoons of picking VM to completely clean Urbana's fleece.  (Last time I cleaned a fleece, I tried washing it first, then picking out the VM.  Doing it that way took much longer.)  If we had a nice, weed-free, manicured pasture, our fleeces would start out a bit cleaner.  But we're not there yet, so for now I spend a little extra time in the fiber prep stage. 

Here's what Urbana's fleece looked like when I was done.  Much cleaner!

Here is the bucket of second cuts, VM, and dirty wool that I discarded.  Nobody would want all this stuff in their quilt!

Now the wool is ready for washing.  I've already written a post about how to wash a fleece, so I won't repeat myself here.  But to continue to track the process of this quilt, here's a photo of Urbana's fleece soaking in the wash water.  That fleece looked pretty clean, didn't it?  But see how brown the wash water becomes?  I only picked out the visible flecks of debris.  Now the soapy wash water will remove the dust, sheep sweat, and lanolin.

Here is the washed and rinsed wool, still wet, laid out on the drying rack in front of the fan.  By tomorrow it will be dry and ready to card.  See how much whiter it is now?  And how the beautiful natural sheen of the wool is starting to show through?

But wait!  What's this?  Even after all the time I spent picking debris out of the wool, now that it's clean and white, suddenly thousands more teeny tiny specks of debris have become visible, where they weren't visible before.

No need to worry.  The washing has removed the sticky lanolin from the fleece.  Once the wool is dry, most of the remaining impurities will fall off naturally when I card the wool.  Any truly stubborn bits that remain after that can be picked or brushed loose as I handle the wool before spinning.

Stay tuned for Part 3!

100% Factory-Free: Handspun, Handwoven Quilt Project (Part 1)

I'm starting a new, major project today!

A friend of mine has placed an order for a custom-made, handspun, handwoven quilt.  I'm pretty excited about doing this because it will be my first of what I hope will be many more large projects creating beautiful, practical, and durable goods from my farm that are 100% factory-free.  I've done lots of other smaller projects (jewelry, purses, etc.), but nothing approaching the scale of an entire queen-sized quilt.

By factory-free, I mean that EVERY material used has been grown on my farm, and EVERY step of the processing, from raw material to finished product, has been done by me, here on the farm, by hand.  How often do you have the opportunity to own an entire quilt that has never, at any point, passed through a factory?

The quilt will be made of wool from my own flock of Icelandic sheep.  I shear the wool myself, then wash, dry, pick, card, spin, ply, weave, and stitch it.  I estimate that this quilt will contain more than 3 miles of double-ply yarn (which means that I spin 6 miles of single-ply yarn, then spin it back on itself to make it two-ply, a total of 9 miles of spinning).

The quilt squares will be individually woven by hand on my set of Quilt Weaver looms from Hazel Rose Looms.  Then the squares will be assembled into the Maple and Oak Leaf pattern I designed.  The colors will be the natural colors of the sheep, so no dyes will ever be used on this quilt.

I expect this project to take me a few months to complete.  I'll post updates here periodically, to show how it's progressing.

Today, I'm starting with the very first step:  Choosing the wool.  My customer wanted his quilt made from lamb's wool, which is a little more expensive, but it's softer than the wool of an adult sheep.

One of the fun things about getting a custom quilt direct from me is that you get to see the sheep who provided the wool.  Here are the sheep who gave their lamb fleeces for this quilt:

Urbana:

Wish:

Ulanova:

Windsor:

I don't have any of the beige colored lamb's wool in my inventory at the moment, so that will come from my fall shearing, in October.  It will probably come from this handsome lamb:

Xenophon:

Next step:  Preparing the wool.  Stay tuned!

How to Wash a Wool Fleece

I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I raised sheep---and sold their wool to hand-spinners---for four years before I tried washing one of the fleeces for my own use.  I'd somehow gotten it into my head that washing fleece was HARD, that in my ignorance I would inevitably ruin the precious locks of wool, and end up with an ugly, matted mess.

Eventually, after my flock had grown large enough that I had surplus fleeces piling up, I figured that it wouldn't be a tragedy even if I did ruin one when I washed it.  So I gave it a try.  And here's what I discovered:

WASHING FLEECES IS EASY!  What a revelation!

So, just in case you, too, suffer from wool-washing anxiety, let me show you an easy method for doing it. 

You will need:

• A dirty fleece
• Plenty of hot water
• Two big dishpans (or a double sink)
• Dawn dish washing liquid
• Borax (optional)
• Wooden spoon (optional)
• Towel
• Drying rack (more about this later)

Now you're ready to begin.

1.  Lay out your supplies so you'll have easy access when you need them.

2.  Fill one large basin with very hot water.  Once it's full, squirt in a generous amount of dish washing liquid and, if desired, a sprinkling of Borax.  Borax helps get the fleece cleaner, but too much can be harsh on the wool fibers, so don't overdo it.

3.  Stir the ingredients so that they dissolve fully in the water.  Use the wooden spoon if the water is too hot for your hands.

4.  Lay the wool on top of the soapy water, then press it down gently with your hands or spoon until it is submerged.  DON'T STIR OR AGITATE THE WOOL or it may begin to felt.  Depending on the size of your basins, you will probably only be able to fit about a pound or so of wool in at a time.  The wool will come out cleaner if you don't pack it in there too tightly, so split your fleece up into as many batches as necessary.

5.  Once the wool is completely submerged, let it soak.  The exact amount of time isn't critical, but it's best that you don't wait until the water has cooled off a lot.  I usually let mine soak for at least 15 minutes, but probably no more than an hour.

6.  Push the wool gently to one side.  Drain the dirty water from the basin and refill with more hot water.  If necessary, you can add a little more dish washing liquid.  DON'T LET THE WATER POUR DIRECTLY ONTO THE WOOL or it will begin to felt.  Let the wool soak again for about the same amount of time.

7.  Once more push the wool gently to one side.  Empty the basin and refill with more hot water.  Don't let the water pour onto the wool.  This is your pre-rinse, so don't add any more dish detergent this time.  You also don't need to let the wool soak.  Just press it gently down into the water to start letting some of the soap rinse off.

8.  Fill your second basin with hot water.  This is your rinse basin.  One handful at a time, lift your wool out of the pre-rinse basin and dunk it into the rinse water.  Then lift it out, let it drain for a moment, and lay it on your towel to sop up some of the excess water.  If I'm going to be washing a lot of wool, I drape my towel over a rack (something like an oven rack will do) placed over a basin, so that when my towel gets completely soaked, the water with drain down through the rack and be caught in the basin.  That way I don't have to stop to change towels.

9.  When the rinse water gets cloudy or soapy, empty it and refill it with hot water.  While it's filling, you can transfer your wool from the towel to your drying rack (more on that in a moment).  Keep refilling the rinse basin, dipping your wool into it, and laying the wool aside to drain until the whole batch is rinsed.

10.  Once your wool is rinsed, lay it out on a drying rack to dry.  A drying rack can be anything that will hold the wool and let air circulate over and around it.  You can use an old screen door or window, a baby gate, an old sheet stretched over a wooden frame, etc.  My favorite is to use these stackable sweater drying racks.  They are inexpensive, don't snag your wool, and the stackable option lets you dry a lot of wool in a relatively small amount of space.  I use four of them for one fleece.  If you stack them in front of a box fan turned on high, you can dry your entire fleece in 24 hours.

For another great idea for a convenient tool to help you wash your wool, check out what this blogger does with cat litter boxes.

If you're a hand-spinner, washing your own wool can save you money, since raw fleeces are the cheapest form of wool.  If you'd like to give it a try, we have lots of lovely Icelandic fleeces available.  Mention that you saw this article, and I'll even give you a $2 per pound discount!

Why Make Felted Soap?

Ever since I posted my tutorial on How to Make Felted Soap, lots of people have been contacting me, all asking the same question:

"WHY make felted soap?"

Oops! I guess I didn't explain that fully in the tutorial, did I? Sorry!

Wool felted around a bar of soap forms a natural scrubby, with pleasant, gentle exfoliation, like a good washcloth.

It also makes the soap easier to grip. As the soap is used, the wool shrinks to fit what is left, so you can use the whole bar, avoiding those slippery little end bits of soap that are hard to hold, slip down the drain, and are wasted.

When the soap is gone, you can even cut a slit into the remaining felt "jacket" and use it as a small pouch! Or fill it with catnip for an all-natural cat toy.

Also, if you've never tried felting before, felting around a bar of soap is a quick, easy project, perfect for a beginner.

It's easy enough for kids to do, so it makes a fun craft activity for them. They may even enjoy bath time more if they get to use the results of their project! :-)

If you would like to try it, Soap Felting Kits and finished Felted Soaps are available here.

How to Make Felted Soap

Since one of the options in my current giveaway is a Soap Felting Kit, I thought I'd make an instructional video and post it here, so everyone can see how easy it is to make your own felted soap.




Prefer written instructions? No problem! Below are the basic soap-felting instructions that come with our kit:


Felted Soap Instructions

Felting over a bar of soap is easy and fun. Besides the soap and wool included in this kit, the only things you need to provide are a bowl of hot water and about 15 minutes of your time.

Your hands will get wet and soapy while you’re doing this, so you’ll want to work on a counter or tabletop that won’t be harmed if it gets damp. You may want to set out a clean towel to wipe your hands on, and to set your finished soap on to dry.

Ready to get started? Let’s go!

1. Fill a medium sized mixing bowl with hot water. The water should be as hot as you can comfortably put your hands in. Don’t make it so hot that you burn yourself!

2. Remove the wrapper and label from your soap.

3. Take the wool out of its bag and set it nearby so you can reach it easily, but where it won’t accidentally get wet before you’re ready to work with it.

4. You’ll find that your wool separates naturally into fist-sized lumps because of the way that it has been carded. Take one lump and gently unroll and spread it so that it is fairly flat and even. Wrap this pad of wool gently but snugly around your bar of soap.

5. Take a second lump of wool, spread it out, and wrap it around your soap in the other direction. If you wrapped the wool lengthwise the first time, wrap it around the width of the soap this time. Try to spread all the fibers around so that all surfaces of the soap are covered.

6. Repeat the previous step, always alternating the direction that you’re wrapping the wool, until your soap is thoroughly covered. I usually find that 3 lumps of wool are about the right amount. You will probably have some wool left over when you’re done, so don’t feel like you need to use all of it just because it’s there.

7. Once your soap is thoroughly covered with wool, cup it in both hands to hold the wool firmly in place, and dip it into the hot water. Still holding the wool in place, lift the soap from the water.

8. Gently begin to pat and press the wet wool against your soap. Don’t use too much pressure at first, or you’ll slide the wool out of place and expose the bare soap (If that happens, slide the wool back into place before you continue). The soap will start to lather. Just keep patting, being sure to show equal attention to all sides.

9. As the wool starts to felt, you’ll feel it begin to hold together on its own, without you having to hold it in place. At that point you can begin rubbing the wool more vigorously. If you need to, you can wet your hands or dip the soap in the water again. Slide the soap through your hands over and over, flipping it frequently so that you’re rubbing in all directions. Keep doing this for about 10-15 minutes or until the wool has formed a solid felt pad all around your soap.

10. You’re done! Rinse the soap in the bowl of water one final time to wash off the suds, then place it on a towel to dry.


UPDATE: If you've read all this and you're asking yourself, "Yes, but WHY would I want to make felted soap?" read my followup post.

Ingleside Farm Felted Soap Giveaway!

Today is my birthday, and I want to give YOU a present!

Starting today, I am accepting entries for our big Felted Soap Giveaway. On March 15, I'll choose one winner at random. The winner will receive his or her choice of the following prizes:

(1) Deluxe Felted Sheep's Milk Soap Collection: Five bars of our fabulous felted sheep's milk soap, one in each of our five natural colors. Click the link above for details.


or (2) Deluxe Soap Felting Kit: Everything you need to felt your own soap. You get five bars of our fabulous sheep's milk soap, five 1-oz. bags of pure Icelandic sheep's wool, and a set of instructions. All you need to provide is a bowl of hot water and a few minutes of your time. Click the link above for details.


There are multiple ways to enter:

1. Become our fan on Facebook (If you're already a fan, that still counts).

2. Tweet about this giveaway on Twitter, with a link to this page.

3. Write a relevant post about this giveaway to an appropriate online forum or group (Please don't spam your forums with inappropriate posts!)

4. Write about this giveaway on your blog, with a link to this page (you may use any of the photos above, if you like).

5. Post a link to this giveaway on your web site (you may use any of the photos above, if you like).

By doing more than one of the above activities, you can earn multiple entries, but only one entry per URL, please.

You must send an email to keepingthefarm@aol.com with details of your entries. Put "Felted Soap Giveaway" in your subject line.

Don't forget to include your name and an accurate email address, so I can let you know if you win!

Felted Sheep's Milk Soap (and Other New Products)

I've been working very hard over the past few weeks, developing several new lines of products for my Etsy shop. As of today, they're finally ready!

First, there are the Felted Sheep's Milk Soaps. Luscious soap made from the milk of our own sheep, then encased in hand-felted wool to form a natural scrubby, with just the right amount of gentle exfoliation, like a good washcloth. Available in five natural colors: White, Beige, Brown, Gray, and Black. You can buy them individually, or as a collection that includes all five colors.


Next, for the do-it-yourselfers out there, I have Felted Soap Making Kits. Making felted soap is easy and fun! With these kits you get everything you need; all you have to add is a bowl of hot water and about 15 minutes of your time. Included: our wonderful sheep's milk soap, hand-carded Icelandic sheep's wool from our flock, and a set of instructions. Available in five natural colors: White, Beige, Brown, Gray, and Black. Buy a kit for a single bar of soap, or a deluxe kit to make one bar in each of the five colors. Get together with a few friends and host a soap-felting party!

And finally: I'm now offering hand-carded Icelandic Sheep's Wool for felting and needle felting projects. This is the same wool that I use for all of my own needle felting. I shear it myself, wash it by hand, and card it the old-fashioned way, with hand carders. It is available in either 1-oz. or 4-oz. bags (1 oz. is quart-sized, 4 oz. is gallon-sized). Choose a single color, or buy a collection that contains one bag of each of our five colors: White, Beige, Brown, Gray, and Black.

Each bag of wool comes with an information card showing the name and photograph of the specific sheep who provided that wool!