if you remember, i was hoping to buy my first fleece at one of the fiber festivals i attended this spring. today, while sorting spinning stuff for my next dye session, guess what i found…
an already washed bfl fleece from a sheep named ella.
with a lovely note from the farmer.
it appears that last december, while searching local harvest for farms, i found bearlin acres. they didn’t have any BFL roving, but i thought hey! what the heck, and ordered 2 lbs of already washed locks. and apparently it was a complete fleece. in the midst of my spinning/dyeing craziness to prepare for the knit and crochet festival and homespun yarn party, i put this aside without doing anything to it (or even examining it closer!).
the note from the farm reads:
Cosette – This fleece was washed through 1 time already. The raw fleece was skirted and picked by hand. There is still some (clean) straw & hay in it, but minimal amounts. She is a good ewe (2 yrs old) & has a small dark brown spot on her shoulder. That’s why you’ll find a small group of locks in brown. This is her whole fleece.
aw… thanks to both ella and linda. i look forward to playing with it.
on another note – i CANNOT believe i bought my first whole fleece without knowing it. gee
she’s a good ewe… that’s so sweet. I can hear her in the field with her friends “baaa ram ewe…baaa ram ewe….”
What a great discovery! The crimp in that wool is so interesting that I would be tempted to try and spin it so that there were carded & raw pieces almost like a novelty type yarn. I’m not a fan of knitting with novelty/art yarn myself (though I admire the time and effort it takes to make it) but I think that would be a cool organic way to showcase the ‘raw’ wool.
Ha! That’s so sweet!
I got my first fleece from someone cleaning out an attic…and I still haven’t opened the box!
what a lovely surprise! it’s nice to know i’m not the only one who forgets about things like that. :)
it’s amazing how far down something can get pushed down into the stash when you’re focused on other things!
That is really funny! LOL
You know you should take the Chinny challenge from Peace fleece.
http://www.peacefleece.com
the 1lb bags of Chinny, (looks like a Romney) the sheep with the big chin, are only $5.00 each plus shipping, which I think was minimal, and they have lots of other stuff, patterns etc. All they want is when you get to Chinny’s fleece, see how much you can make out of 1 pound. People that work with them do it all, spin, felt, weave, knit, crochet, they run the gamut of fiber fun.
The fleece is listed as “greasy” but it seems fairly clean to me. I talked to one of the owners (through email) and he (Peter, I think, so many farms and fleeces so many owners…lol) said that he spins it without washing it because he likes the smooth feel of the lanolin. I thought what the hey and did the same…it spins clean, or greasy just as easily, and is truly soft.
Keep on spinnin’
:)