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| Shetland Sheep |
This weekend we had one of those learning moments when everything came clear. We have already decided that we would like to keep a British breed of sheep as they are easier to look after, generally smaller and much more tolerant of our fickle British weather. Then I heard that the group of British sheep which come under the heading of Primitives actually shed their coat. If you pick just the right moment, you can help the process and actually pluck the fleece off the sheep's back. This is called 'rooing'. Shetlands look like the best sheep for where we plan to live. They come in a variety of colours, are good mothers, have a very usable fleece and produce good meat.
Desperate to know to more, I searched the internet and found this website. http://www.shetlandsheepinfo.com/HUSBANDRY/rooing.htm
Unbelievable! You can actually peel or pluck a sheep. I needed to know more and found this video on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsmPBfWFVf4
The fleece won't come away nicely until the under fleece is ready to release it. You only pull away the old fleece using the hands, and unlike shearing, you won't nick the sheep's skin. Brilliant!!
Where can I get some Shetlands?
So January is the month for working on the Dorset/Hampshire fleece that I purchased last year. It was already combed, which was nice because it is hard work on the elbows and mine is still grumbling because of the cold, damp weather.
I decided to spin the first lot. My thoughts on this is that if I spin two lots of 50g and my spinning is fairly consistent, they should be the same length. Well, they almost were. This is important when you ply yarn to make it thicker. Next came the measuring, mentioned in the last blog and at 106m that confirmed that the yarn was coming out chunky. Armed with all this information and after a light wash, the yarn was listed onto ebay.
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| Blues and purples |
I also purchased some Jacquard Acid dyes last year to tackle some hand dyeing. This involves boiling up the fleece or yarn in a big saucepan with vinegar (acid) and adding powdered dyes which merge together well to create the final effect. The problem is boiling real wool can make it felt and fuse together. A lot of care is needed. So I split the roving into 3 and plaited it to give it some strength.
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| Yellow and greens |
I have managed to create two 50g batches of blue/purple roving (unspun but carded fleece) and two 50g batches of yellow/green roving. Then they have been washed and drip dried so that they can be packaged up. They have all been listed on ebay and I shall see how (if) it sells with the idea of how the future fleeces will be processed.
Follow their progress in my ebay shop: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Layette-Knitting
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.
