I still allow myself some creative time completely free of any requirements, but I have learned to appreciate how much I can gain from documenting my work and how much I can enjoy the process of consciously taking notes while working.

I hope to share that process with you as I document my sampling of an absolutely gorgeous naturally colored lamb fleece from Sheepsong Farm.

I received this stunning Icelandic lamb fleece in the mail yesterday, and carefully washed it and set it out to dry out in the studio. I couldn’t resist bringing in a handful of locks to dry by the stove in our little house.

This morning, they were nice and dry, and I decided to have some fun making some samples.

I decided to divide the handful of locks into two piles; one that I would separate into the softer undercoat (thel) and the longer outer fibers (tog), and one that I would spin the two fibers combined.

I began by separating the thel from the tog.

I took each individual lock, holding it just above the point where the soft downy thel ended – in a naturally colored fleece like this, it’s easy to see that point – and drew it gently through the teeth of a handcard.

The soft thel ended up in the tines of the card, and the tog came free in my hand.

I removed the thel from the handcard, and then repeated the process on the remaining locks in that pile. I sorted the tog and thel into separate piles, and then paused to take this picture:

I couldn’t resist spinning the super soft and silky thel first. I got out my trusty Clemes & Clemes fine wool handcards and carded up a nice lofty rolag. I use generally the same method that Spinning Spider Jenny explains on her blog, here, but I rolled up my fiber into a rolag instead of a cigar. I used one of my favorite spindles, a 1.4 ounce Kundert, to spin up the sample rolag.

The fiber drafted effortlessly, to the point of drifting apart. The few longer coarser dark fibers in the mix seemed to make it easier to spin, and I suspect they probably add some stability to the yarn. I drafted in a mixed method, using both hands and drafting against the twist.

After drafting out a good long length, I did one more flick of the spindle to add additional twist. In a spinning class with Patsy Zawistowski at the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival we were taught that downy soft fibers require a little bit more twist. Since the soft thel resembles cashmere, I figured I might as well treat it like cashmere. The singles measured 44 wraps per inch.

I used the handy plying method (which I also learned as the ‘Miss America’ method from Patsy Z) to basically fold the single back on itself to create a nice two-ply yarn. I spun it in the opposite direction of original twist to just past the point where it was acting balanced. The final wraps per inch were 21.

One reason I love sampling is the fun tools; this cherry wood sample-size niddy-noddy is just perfect for skeining up samples. I used it to turn the small spindle cop into a skein.

Ding!
Round 1 completed.

So far, all I am going to say is that I can highly recommend fleeces from Sue. They’re beautifully skirted, soft and healthy, nearly free of any VM, and she even crosses over the border from Canada to ship them so that I don’t have to pay extra shipping.

She may even have some fleeces left, if you’re interested, let me know and I’ll pass on her contact information.

Thanks for sharing in the process with me in this post. Check back soon to see how the second and third rounds went, and to see the final results.