The Process.....

There are a lot of posts and discussions on Ravelry about spinning and there are gorgeous pictures of finished yarn and the projects that are made from this lovely stuff.  This post is a bit different.  I wanted to show how I take a bag of deliciously stinky fleece and transform it into actual knitting yarn.  That part of it still feels transformative and magic to me.  So, here is my process.  Yours might be different, but so long as we both end up with results that please us, does it matter?

Lovely Romney fleece straight out of the bag it had been stored in since last summer.  I pulled out an individual lock to show the pretty crimp - and also to show how clean this fleece is.  Wish I could remember where I bought it from!!!!  2015 resolution - label your fleece, woman.......
There are bags and boxes of fleece waiting for attention all over the house.  This is the year they get the love they deserve.

I took the individual skinny locks and bundled them together into manageable chunks to wash to save time and to give me decent sized bits to spin once the locks were washed, dried and flicked ready to go.  I love Romney fleece.  In a nostalgic way, since it was the first fleece I ever prepared and spun on my first, clunky old wheel.  But, I love it in a non-nostalgic way, too.  It's the perfect combination of staple length and crimp in the fleece and it has a delicious 'bounce' in the finished yarn.  

Blergh, right?????  Even in a clean fleece like this one, this is how manky the water looked halfway through washing the batch.  Explains why I rarely spin in the grease anymore........

Aww, they look like bedraggled spaniels ears, don't they?  Don't worry, look at the next photo to see the glory that comes once they've been washed in very hot water with a good squirt of Fairy liquid, rinsed in clean water of the same temperature and then squished free of excess water.....

You hear the angels??  Lovely, white locks almost ready for spinning.  They just need to be flicked and drafted a little once they've had a spell of drying in front of the woodburner and they'll be ready to go.....

another glamour shot of the beauties.  Couldn't resist.  This type of fleece isn't soft, soft - it's not a merino or a bowmont or similar, but it has a bouncy, easy to spin charm all of its own and there's a place for just about any kind of fleece in my house and on my wheel.  

in typical fashion, I managed to document everything right up until the point I was spinning.  When I'm spinning, I forget everything, it seems.  Anyhow, this is how that lovely cleaned fleece turned out once it was washed, dried, flicked and spun up into a sport weight, 2ply yarn.  There's just under 400 yards in that big skein.  I dyed it with gun metal dye with a hint of teal and it's going to become some socks for my husband.

There is still more of the Romney to be processed and spun.  Maybe it's time to try a three-ply sock yarn?  Or spin a fat single and ply it with a skinny one to make a gimp yarn?  So many options.  Hope you've enjoyed this quick spin round my fleece processing.

Happy Spinning and Knitting this weekend!!