In the beginning.....

....well, strictly speaking, it isn't the beginning - not of my spinning, knitting and felting, anyway; just the beginning of a new Blog. For a long time, I have mulled over whether I should have a separate one for my craft interests and have finally decided to go ahead. Grandma's Yarns will mainly contain stories and reports of some of the things I and the other half of this family (alias The Archaeologist) get up to at home and on our travels. Thus, I hope, my family and friends who aren't really interested in my fibre-y pastimes don't have to wade through it all (there is quite a bit on Grandma's Yarns...). This one is still in the making but if I let this post 'sit', I have learned from experience that it will become both very delayed and too long, so, it is a 'Blog in progress/development...

At the moment, I have both wheels out and am working on some silk that I have had for a long time on my Joy wheel and using the Traveller to do a bit of experimenting. I have lots of raw fleece that I want to make use of but I like to use other fibres too.

Some while ago, I bought two Ouessant fleeces: one was much smaller than the other. This week, I decided that I needed to begin spinning them, so I tried putting a handful of the smaller one (below) through my Picker, as I thought it would loosen the fibre up. 

Instead, I found myself with a bundle of very short pieces of fibre (below) that I didn't know what to do with: I decided that this was too rough a process for them. 

I next tried carding some more and then spinning the result, which proved difficult and very lumpy (below. I currently have a lace flier fitted to my Traveller but haven't used it much, which might contribute to the fact that the Ouessant is very unevenly spun. 

Next, I tried some of the larger fleece (below) and carded that. The staple was somewhat longer but not appreciably. I looked up the breed in The Fleece and Fibre Sourcebook and read that the Ouessant is a double- and perhaps even triple-coated sheep, so there are short, softer fibres and longer, course ones. The suggestion is that it can be carded or combed. I generally use a drum carder but this time, used hand carders and discovered at the same time, that my left wrist no longer liked the process, so I won't be able to card much this way. 

I spun the larger fleece......

...and this is the yarn. I kept having to stop spinning to pick out very short, fluffy bits, which didn't look like second cuts - more like tiny bits of the fleece. 

The yarns from both fleeces are very uneven, more so than my spinning usually is. I don't know if the lace flier I am using is partly responsible or whether I am just not skilled enough to spin such a fleece but, either way, I don't like using that flier at all. My spinning tends to the finer gauge, so I thought it would be a good idea to have something specialised....

With so much unprocessed fleece on my mind, I decided to begin washing a bit regularly instead of waiting (interminably) to have a free and a fine day which coincide. With this in mind, I have begun with my cleanest, a Valais Blacknose that I had sent from Scotland. So far, I have washed three lots over three days. I have been soaking it, rinsing and then spinning it dry tightly packed into a small net bag. It comes out all bouncy with some crimping. I will try drum carding it and comb some as well. 

It has quite a long staple: around 20cm and it feels fairly coarse.

I will be interested to hear from anyone who has tried spinning either of these fleeces....but for now, back to other things...