An exciting idea!
Last year I set off on a journey of discovery to teach myself how to spin a sheep's fleece into yarn. This is partly because I was inspired by someone else who was trying the same thing and also because I knit, so it seemed a natural progression. I could also conduct a survey of the different British native breeds to determine which one would be preferable to keep for spinning.
I had a varying results and then stopped towards the end of the year. I had purchased around 10 complete fleeces over the summer along with various devices for carding the fleece. Some of the fleeces are beautiful and some are seriously gnarly. The fleeces have been stored suspended from the garage rafters in hessian sacks and pillow cases, and resemble a collection of body bags. I have tried to spin various fleeces as they have arrived and probably narrowed my choice down the Shetland sheep or perhaps Suffolks. Hmmm. What to do with all these fleeces?
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| Dorset sheep |
Last week I had an idea which has become a kind of New Year's Resolution! I will spend a month on each type of fleece. I will process them as they allow, spinning and possibly dyeing them to create yarn and roving to use or sell on ebay.
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| Niddy-noddy |
A week later and I have spun 100g of Dorset/Hamsphire fleece (it came like that), and dyed two lots of 50g carded fleece to sell in bags. I had to calculate the length of the spun yarn which was achieved by measuring the niddy-noddy using string (so that it doesn't stretch). One round was 1.8m, then counting how many rounds the spun yarn achieved (59),
1.8 x 59 = 106m. This also confirmed my suspicions that the yarn that I had spun and plied was coming in as chunky. I'm happy with that. Both the spun yarn and dyed roving have been washed and now comes the real problem of getting them dry again. I can't put them in the drier so they are drip-drying ... in January. From the Spring, they could go outside.
In the meantime, the knitting has been progressing slowly. The stock in the ebay shop has been dwindling but I have nearly completed another cricket jumper and started on a new blue cable jumper. I have also been making big blankets, probably by instinct for the forthcoming severe winter.
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