In The Beginning

People that come to the village to visit have commented that some of the hand made pieces that they see in the gift shop seem expensive. Though I can't speak for all the artisans at the village, I'm sure many of them will agree that many hours of labor go into each piece before you see the finished item.
I wanted to share with you the steps, and time that go into one of the pieces that you might see at the village.
The project that I've selected is a hand woven shawl, made from hand spun yarn.
The materials that I have chosen for this project are wool and cotton.

When I purchased this wool it had only been sheared off the sheep. The wool smelled like a sheep and was dirty and greasy from all the lanolin that coats the wool to keep the sheep dry and warm.
So step #1 I needed to wash the wool by hand and let it dry. Time 1-2 hours.
As you can see in the picture the wool is in a tangled mess. I can't spin the wool in this condition,

Step #2 Carding. This tool is called a drum carder. It's function is to brush and line up the fiber for spinning. For this wool I needed to run it through the carder 3-4 times, before it was smooth enough to spin. I will need about 14oz. Time, 4hours.

The wool is now ready to spin. I did spin this wool on my spinning wheel. I needed to spin a fine yarn for the shawl which takes longer to do than thicker yarns. I can spin 4 ounces of yarn on one of my bobbins. Total yardage on one bobbin is about 1200 yards. It takes me about 6 hours to spin one bobbin, I spun up three. After the yarn is spun I need to ply the yarn into a two ply yarn. That takes about another 2 hours per bobbin. Total time to spin and ply the yarn 24 hours.

The yarn is now ready. I will be using this yarn for the weft in the shawl. I chose to purchase a beautiful pearl cotton (hot red) for the warp. Total time so far for this shawl 30 hours, and I've not even begun to weave yet.

Tomorrow I start preparing the loom.