This is the latest longer-term project.

I was given a fleece by a farmer whilst on holiday in Cumbria last month. It is a lovely fleece with natural colour variation and I thought I could incorporate that in a project.

I’ll spin two yarns: one from a lighter portion of the fleece and another from a darker to produce the yarns for this lovely stranded pattern. It’s a Herdwick, so it’s not soft, so I’ll line them with commercially spun yarn for softness and extra (!) warmth.

The fleece is being scoured Judith Mackenzie McCuin style: it’s been soaking for the last 2 days and now I’m simmering it on the stove with Fairy (Dawn).

I’ll have to decide whether to flick or drum card it, but I’d rather flick card as I want to spin it worsted for durability.

Watch this space.

21 August
I’ve been experimenting with the processing of this a bit and I think this really needs to be combed, which means buying combs and learning to do it. It has lots of second cuts and carding means that the resulting yarn has lots of bits of fibre sticking out (this wool is too rough for that!) plus I’m finding it quite hard to spin evenly. Hmmmmm.