my very first fleece.
Okay, so it's not negative micron merino lamb or the fleece from a cormo blessed by the Pope himself on that day when all the animals go to church (I can never remember what they call it, not being Catholic and all, but they always show elephants in some grand cathedral on TV.) It's a beautiful chocolate brown Marsh Romney (actually it's Gulf Coast Native, ed). I wasn't brave enough to buy a whole fleece. I bought a pound of Romney and a pound of Gulf Coast Native from Running Moon Farms in Louisiana.
I've been reading up on processing a fleece for a while and was therefore forewarned that the fleece was likely to be quite aromatic. I steadied myself as I opened the box. I was prepared for barnyard, heck I was ready to deal with an odor like that really stinky breed of fox. (I don't remember its name either, but they have one at the Houston Zoo. You can find it with you eyes closed.) Well, I opened the box and guess what? Nothing, no zoo, no sheep, no general wooliness. I mean I didn't bend down close and take a big whiff, but I was almost disappointed.
I was ready to go to battle. I had equipped myself with brand new gloves, several sweater laundering bags, and a big bottle of Dawn. I was going to get in touch with nature, the earth with all of its malodorous excrescences. Instead I had the pleasure of processing a clean fleece with a few small bits of vegetable matter. Honestly there's less VM in this fleece than your average ball of Noro Kureyon.
You have to understand that when I say clean I'm speaking relatively. This photo of the bathtub filled with hot water, a few squirts of Dawn and a little salt and laundry bags full of fleece will give you an idea of what can come off of a clean fleece.
This color is light. By the time the first soak was done the water was the color of coffee. After the first soak. I washed each bag by its lonesome in my kitchen sink. Once more with soap, then several rinses. Working in the tub is great, but it takes too long to refill the tub for successive washes. I then spun the water out of the fleece in the washing machine. It left the fleece so dry it only took a couple of hours for it to dry.
I then used my spanking new Louet cotton cards (yes they work on wool) to card fluffy little rolags.
I spun the rolags longdraw to produce a sample skein of my very first true woolen yarn.
I wished I had taken a picture of it before I finished it using Judith Mackenzie McCuin's fulling technique. The difference was startling. My yarn plumped up to about twice its original diameter. The fluffiness really helps hide the unevenness. It's like magic.
Now this yarn is not baby's bottom soft, but it is far softer than I thought it would be. I have spun Romney before. Really harsh scratchy stuff sold by Louet. This is nothing like it. (Because it is not Romney, ed.) It is rustic but not prickly or itchy at all (I'm not particularly sensitive mind you). I was going spin a yarn to weave a bag (whenever I get my %^&#* heddle), but I think I might knit a scarf and gloves instead.
Now back to carding.
Edited to correct the misidentification of this fleece as Marsh Romney in my first post.
