Wool Delivery!

Although there are many many lovely pre-dyed & prepared fleeces available nowadays I have always preferred spinning from raw fleeces. Not completely in the grease (raw-no washing) mind you but hand washed & carded (by hand or drum carder) or combed by me. I love it because I'm practical. I like to make things with my fiber and in order to make really useful things like sweaters & blankets you need a LOT of wool! So this is the most practical way for me to get the yarns I want. I also enjoy the way a less processed fiber feels in my hands when I spin it. Not slippery like much of that fancy combed top you see everywhere but something with texture in it.
So I sent out 10 lbs of raw wool to Aunt Janet's fiber mill in Northern California on the recommendation of my friend Susie.

Last year at the Ventura County Fair I bought a corriedale fleece from a shepherd at a sale price because it was already a year old. I was so frustrated trying to clean and prepare this fleece and it made the lumpiest ugliest yarn there ever was. So I decided to try to save it by sending it out and see if a professional could improve it. It was either that or become doll stuffing.

Professional processing definitely did the trick. I even used the drop spindle and made a little sample 3 ply to see how it looks. Me thinks this will make some very nice socks. Maybe I'll dye it and sell the extra.
Above you see some stunning Romney that I bought from Skylines farms. They have organically fed happy sheep that produce the most lustrous fiber you can imagine. I love her fleeces even when I clean them myself, I like them better cleaned by someone else. This will go into that blanket that I'm dyeing with Indigo.

And here you see some other random fiber that was in my fiber collection waiting for attention...