Wet fleece: Dry fleece

Clockwise from top left: Fine, Silky, Hairy, Loose crimp

I have been musing that washing and prepping fleece to spin is rather control-freaky. Like the artist who grinds her own pigments?

It means that I can choose exactly what type of breed I want and - assuming I can lay hands or eyes on it in person before buying - it also means I can choose a fleece that is a really good representative of that breed. Or even one which is an unbelieveable representative of that breed. And let's not forget the one-off cross breeds. How about a rare breed? (talk about sheep with character!). Or fleece from flocks with insufficient capacity to attract a mill. Or fleece from rescue sheep, or no-slaughter flocks.  Or in my case the very very very local sheep I have direct access to during a pandemic.

Once you have the fleece, then - even more control-freakery - you can start selecting which parts of the fleece have the properties you want for your project. Colour, coarseness, length and strength. You can get very very picky. This picture shows (before washing) four different qualities from the same sheep. If you don't process your own wool all of these different fleece attributes get mixed together (all whites and all darks perhaps or coarse with fine) and likely not just one sheep. It all becomes more homogenised.

Drying fleece just right

Using IKEA FANGST storage (from Car boot sales/charity shops)

Wool holds a lot of water so - before I learned about spin dyers in fleece washing - I used my polytunnel as a large weatherproof space to dry my fleece in. It dried the fleece and unfortunately over-dried it.

Nowadays I use hanging net toy baskets on the washing line, shaded from the heat of the sun, gently drying. A colourful sight and, this year, within eyeballing distance of some of the sheep that provided it.

Now that's local.