fresh off the sheep

 Hi

(Wednesday)

I had noticed whilst browsing Facebook that our local inner city farm ( stonebridgecityfarm.com) was having a shearing day today. They only have half a dozen or so sheep so its a primarily a demo for the children.

Since I am now a lady of leisure 😀 I hoped on a bus, did a couple of small errands and headed up to the farm. It was easy to find the shearing, just follow the sound of the sheep!

As I reached the pen they had just finished shearing the first sheep, a nice Jacob with a lovely big fleece. Good length locks, no felting and although there was some straw in the fleece I couldn't see any grass seeds.

I stopped to watch the next shearing and got chatting to the shearer who turned out to also be a spinner. Unsurprisingly I had a drop spindle and spun samples in my bag, one of which was a skein of Jacob which I passed to her so she had something to demonstrate as a possible end product.

Now, remember that first fleece? somehow it jumped into my rucksack and came home with me 😁😁😁

 We have exchanged email adds etc and may hook up next year to do a shear and spin demo.

The fleece is now in 6 mesh bags ready to wash tomorrow and two black bin-liners to be sorted at the weekend.

Thursday,

Not even 8am and 4 bags of fleece on the line, another two in hot soapy water. Hopefully the fleece will get dry today and I will be able to prep tomorrow, not sure whether to comb or card. I love combed fleece but it does take some time to prep and the wastage can be quite high.

Friday

Nearly 100gm ready to spin, still have a full pillow case and will wash some more next week.

I think that I may be gaining a reputation for weirdness, I decided that the best use of my time during a zoom meeting last night was to comb some fibre. This caused some interest from some of the archeology fans haha.

Have a great day xx