Fleeces and Spinning

The weather has been fabulous! On Sunday, I laid out my Cormo fleece on the back deck and with the help of my "Guardian of the Wool" skirted the fleece. I love the picture of her "sniffing the wool"! She looks a bit disinterested though, once I laid it out.



This is the first time that I really attempted to skirt a fleece. I didn't get rid of much, although there is a small area with quite a bit of VM.....I'll keep that separate as I wash it and card it - that way, if I decide it's not "worth the trouble", I can pitch it without losing any of the best wool. I had a very small amount of "second cuts" and little bit of wool that was only about 2" in length...there may be some more mixed in, but this was the "obvious" stuff. I kept the shorter wool and the second cuts and will be washing them as well - I may use that wool for felting and/or stuffing.

The fleece was fabulous - almost no VM! The flock was blanketed, so that really kept the VM down. The lock shown here is one of the shorter ones - you can see how nice and white it will be once I have it all washed up. Quite a difference from the "outer layers" you can see in the big picture!

At the spinning group tonight, I asked a fellow spinner (who's also a shepherdess) about skirting. One thing I hadn't done was flip the fleece over to search for and remove any second cuts on the interior side. I did shake it out a bit along the edges and removed some that way, but I didn't do a very thorough job. I may lay it all out again and look for second cuts on the inside.....or I may just check it as I begin to wash it.....a little bit at a time.

I also found out why the one area of the fleece was heavier in VM than the other areas. It turns out that sheep (and goats) favor one side of the body. Since the VM was concentrated on the left side, it appears that this sheep favored the left.....does this mean that she's a "left-handed" sheep? If so, it somehow seems natural that I would gravitate to this particular fleece!

Back to tonight's spinning. I FINALLY finished spinning the "mystery wool". I'd nearly finished spinning it at the meeting tonight. When I got back home, I became obsessive about finishing it off - it only took another half hour...that's how close I was! Now, all I have to do is ply it! I can't wait to see how it looks when I'm done plying!