Three Bags Full

Jul 17, 2011 by birdsong

Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three bags full.

One for the Master,
One for the Dame,
One for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.

Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three bags full.

Not surprisingly, this was my favorite Mother Goose rhyme when I was a child… following is the tale of my own three bags full.

Summer is going well here in northern California, though quite a bit cooler than usual. Most of the dye plants are thriving, and the woods around me are lush. I have both bronze and green fennel drying, along with yarrow, comfrey root and flowers from both the zinnias and black-eyed susans. The mulching has kept the weeds down and the perennial shrubs are settling in nicely, so it seemed like a great time to take a break for a few days and deliver the luscious Romney fleeces that Mary donated to me for processing.

I left early Friday morning, rather than my usual time in the gardens, stopping first in Newcastle to pick up the wool. Mary raises both Romney and Merino sheep, acquired from the prize-winning Mendenhall flocks several years ago. She had even skirted the fleeces for me, and I am so enormously grateful for this wonderful donation to my CSA. She has a lovely farmstead with a century-old farmhouse and extensive gardens and I was delighted to get to see her briefly.

However, I couldn’t stay long, as I was off to Woodland, home of Yolo Wool Mill, where I learned that I was dropping off 34 pounds of wool… we hadn’t had a way to accurately gauge, and even though scouring and processing will shrink that weight down somewhat, it will make a goodly amount of yarn.

I left off my three bags of wool, where they will be scoured, spun and turned into sport weight yarn, enough for me to dye with one or two of the plants that must be used up fresh, for my subscribers. I also was able to pick up Rowen’s previous order, of much Shetland colored wools, which demonstrated the quality of the mill’s efforts. I look forward to making a return trip, in about two months, to get my order!