Back in January I realised that I was getting very low on white fleece, bad time of the year to buy and wash/dry it myself so when I saw a small wool mill advertising that they could sell wash and dried fleece I was understandably curious.
I contacted them asking if is was suitable for spinning and they assured me that they had spinners regularly buying the washed fleece. So I ordered some, a mule fleece and a Ryeland , in fact it was a huge Ryeland that filled three pillowcases.
mule fleece
My favourite way to process a fleece is to use my wool combs, this gives a really easy to spin fibre but is time consuming. Unfortunately both of the fleeces have proved to be difficult to work with, both are sticky and I feel that a box picker would be a very welcome addition to my equipment at this point.
I persevered and have spun a skein from each and today I have re washed some of the mule fleece to see if it makes a difference.
mule fleece rewashed
I persevered and have spun a skein from each and today I have re washed some of the mule fleece to see if it makes a difference.
Ryeland fleece spun and dyed
My plan had been to spin a kilo plus and then dye the skeins but I think the jury is out at the moment.
I still need spinable fibre as we have a longish road trip planned and I will be taking the e-spinner along so I bought a kilo of raw Jacob from a pedigree flock. Beautiful fleece, washed up well but lost maybe 40% or weight on washing, more on prepping but it was lovely to spin so may have ordered some more.
Then I snagged a large bag of Jacob at the last guild meeting so hopefully I will have 500/600gm prepped to pack in the van.
I also have a small bag of washed alpaca. I tried spinning alpaca maybe 10 years ago and didn't enjoy it but I'm thinking that maybe I'll try it again as it may be nice to blend with some Shetland so I'll keep you posted on that one.
I've been knitting as usual as I have a target of 10 of each (hats, mitts and headbands) and I'm nearly there in spite of keeping two hats back for myself and selling a hat and two pairs of mitts just before Christmas.
As usual, I've been stitching on a couple of stitch a long challenges ( one is more up to date than the other) and I will pack these in the van along with my knitting.
As I'm writing, the Met office have just issued snow warnings which probably won't impact us here but may possibly put a spanner in the works for my upcoming visit to the Buxton wool gathering. I am crossing just about everything at the moment 😀
2 comments:
Congrats on conquering the difficult fleece! The skeins are really lovely. Jacob is always a joy to work with. I've always said if I could have one sheep ( or maybe two) it would be a Jacob. Your knit items are amazing-such a variety of patterns and colors.
I always look forward to seeing your stitching projects. They really are spectacular.
It's a real shame Sue that you didn't find the fleece perfect for spinning, because I'm sure that being able to order fleece by breed, ready scoured, would be very interesting to a lot of spinners.
I love the way your finished items look in natural colours. The addition of a little bit of dyed colour looks great too.
Keep warm!
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