The last time I updated this project was during the Pennsic 42 Display post, but I wanted to give my final thoughts on the project. Now that I have started working on the follow up to this project I am finally going to put this project to rest.
I hesitate to call this project a "failure", even though I was not able to achieve my goal of creating a dress from raw fiber.
Many mistakes were made in the execution of this project, but in the long run I cannot consider it a failure because so much was learned in the process.
Here are the obstacles I encountered that caused the project to be abandoned. These lessons were learned the hard way and of course now looking back it seems that I should have known better. At least I know the same mistakes will not be made next time.
1. I really underestimated how much fiber I would need to create the yardage needed to make a dress. When I started this project I was not a weaver and had no idea how to calculate the yardage needed for a warp and weft. I also had no ide how much yarn I could get from a single Black Welsh Sheep's fleece.
2. Fleece quality varies A LOT from sheep to sheep and from flock to flock. Wool from fleeces need to mixed together BEFORE you spin if you want to get a homogeneous yarn. I tried to spin more yarn from a different fleece and the quality was so completely different from the first one.
3. Black Welsh Sheep are really rare and it is super hard to find fleeces for sale. Fiber festivals really favor white sheep fleeces. Most color fleeces I found came from Shetland sheep, or Jacob sheep. I have never seen a Black Welsh Fleece for sale at the festivals I go to and the one Black Welsh breeder I met never sold the fleeces before, they just had them as meat sheep. I need to find a good source of fiber before I try to make another garment from Black Welsh Sheep (and I really do want to make another one).
4. Since this was my first A&S project I was super excited to get started actually making the dress so I started wool prep and spinning before I started the researching textile construction. BIG MISTAKE! I learned way too late that I should be using singles for the warp and weft and the yarn I was spinning was way too thick to be anything but heavy duty outerwear (or a rug). Also in the 14th century combing was much more popular than carding which was the fiber technique I had done. Now that I have several years of A&S projects under my belt I know it is much better to do the bulk of your research before starting construction. There are many important decisions you need to make before starting and often once you start working it is too late to change the way you are working.
When I was done weaving and fulling I had about 4 yards of 18 inch wide fabric which is not nearly enough for the dress I had planned on making. I am not going to lie, I was crushed when I realized the project couldn't continue. It was months before I could even think about what I was going to do with the fiber I had created. I still haven't really finished sewing the hood I made instead. I still need to add the buttons, and I will probably make some kind of pilgrims bag to go along with it.
I displayed the unfinished hood at the Known World A&S Display at Pennsic 45. I spent so much time explaining what went wrong, and what I would do differently that I decided not to display this project anymore. I have started a new dress project (I call it Fleece to Frock II ). This time I am doing the research up front. I have 6 big beautiful Jacob Fleeces washed and ready to be combed. I will be happy when I finally finish up the last bit of the hood and bag and I can put this all behind me and just enjoy the finished product of this very long journey. I am happily looking forward to starting a new project with hopefully a better outcome.
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