Catherinechaos
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FleeceI would be grateful for a bit of direction on this as well. I've tried to wash and card fleeces myself but it always seems a bit of a pain in the ass. I love Bluefaced Leicester but have only bought it as tops.
I bought a Jacob fleece from a woman in my guild which was one of her own sheep and did all the palava, washed it dried it for a couple of years and then carded it and then when I'd spun it someone else in the guild told me it wasn't a good fleece to start with and from the wrong part of the sheep and really wasn't worth having. It was all itchy. So it kind of put me off. So be warned Natalie, nothing is as simple as it first seems.
I now have some Hebridean drying in my garden which was off this sheep from a local field and it's just hideously dirty and horrid. Is it worth the effort - Help me someone!
Sorry Natalie, seem to have taken your subject and gone mad with it!
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natalie
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What a shame.
Seems odd for one person in the guild to sell you a fleece and another to criticise (however nicely) what you have bought, especially after all your hard work.
Was it a whole fleece, or just part of it? I know some bits of a fleece are better for fine spinning and others better for rugs and stuff.
I'm not a sheep expert, but I have always thought of Jacobs as a kind of all rounder, the decathlete of the sheep world, good for eating as well as for wool.
Can anyone else throw any light on this?
natalie
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cledry yarner
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Hmmm, I'll tell you what I do but other, more fastidious people may be more help 
I'm remarkably bad at sorting fleece but our fleece doesn't seem to need it. We don't use sheep dip or any chemicals at all so I don't know if it's to do with that or the fact that I'm not very fussy  Jacobs wool can be scratchy I think. I've felt other poeple's and wondered why they use it. Ours are crossed with shetland so are nice and soft. I'm also of the mind that all wool is worth having, even if you have to make rugs or placemats out of it.
Re the dirty fleece. Get an old single duvet cover or similar and lay the fleece on it - preferably outdoors if it's minging. Try to pick out the most visible vegetable matter if there's still some in there- pain in the bum, I hate that job Then you could either give the whole thing a cold water soak in the bath or (probably easier) just try a small amount first. Still give it a good soak in cold water - up to 24 hrs and because it's cold and there's no soap you can be a bit rougher with it. You can give the dirty ends a rub between your fingers. If that doesn't sort it out you may have to wash it again (just had this problem with some raw merino - washed it 6 times and it's still waxy  )
I'd like to help on the sorting aspect but I don't have a clue. BTW *whispers this bit* I find members of the guilds can be a bit errr purist*
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sal the spider
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Gosh you do seem fed up I am by no means an expert on this subject but will offer what bit of advice I can and those more qualified can fill in all the gaps........ 
Just because it is a fleece and you are a spinner does not mean you want it! This is a hard one to learn. You can end up with a house full of crap fleece. Know this one thing - most farmers do not keep sheep for fleece, if it were not a welfare issue they wouldn't shear them at all, there is no money in it. Sheep keeping for fleece (as opposed to meat) is a whole different ball game, labour intensive, you pay more but get better fleece.
Fleeces will vary tremendously within a breed due to factors too numerous to go into. I have three Jacob's fleece at the moment and they vary A LOT!
Each fleece will have soft parts and more scratchy parts depending where on the body it was growing - lay out your fleece and you'll see. There will be kempy areas especially around the back legs, the softest wool is nearer the front and neck. Seperate the rough from the smooth. Chuck the real dross in the compost bin.
A really dirty fleece CAN be saved if it's worth it (you can put it into REALLY hot water to soak but DON'T agitate or you'll have a bloody big bit of felt!) but I wouldn't bother with anything full of straw/burrs etc. Too much of a pain in the ass!
It also depends very much on what you want to use it for. Stick a bit down your bra (!) for the day and if it irritates it's failed the bra test! Use it for outer wear, or weave a peg loom rug with it.
I have some "average white sheep" fleece that is just that - average - and some that is really lovely and a joy to spin, it was all free so it has at least been a cheap learning curve
Don't be too despondantjust keep telling yourself - through clenched teeth - that it's all part of the fun
Sal
ps tried to edit this but it's still a bit wordy - sorry!
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sally
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Sheep vary even within breed depending on what their health was like, how they were shorn (you can end up with an awful fleece if it has been badly shorn, full of little tufts), if they were shorn a bit late etc etc,
Its is tre that its usually a good idea to sort your fleece before washing it, I find its much easier to determine what parts you want at that stage. Its not rocket science, just work with what seems right to you, but I usually go about it like this:
Put a sheet down unless you have a floor that cleans up easily! Open the fleece and spread it out cut side down.
Have a good hard look at it, is the fleece softer and finer anywhere? Usually the back of the neck is visibly different in may breeds. Are there any really coarse horrible bits?
Next I pick off any dags (mucky bits) and put those aside for the compost heap or as a mulch under roses.
Now seperate out fleece of a similar quality. How many grades you split out depends on your end project, but even if you want to make one garment from the whole fleece, you'll need to card 'coarse' with 'fine' to get an even end result, so you need to do a bit of sorting anyway. I typically split out three grades, what I perceive as the 'normal' average fleece, the really fine, and the coarse.
If you have more than one fleece from the same breed it can be worth using all the fine together for example, so its handy to do this as soon as you get the fleece. Bag it all up and label it! I learnt the hard way that wrapping in old newspapers didn't help me identify what fleece it was when I find them again a decade after sorting 
I wouldnt wash the fleece unless it really needed it or until just before I work with it, and in my opinion often the fine grade won't need washing until the yarn is finished, but everyone has different preferences. The good thing about a sorted fleece is that you can handle smaller amounts of fibre and get it dry quickly.
Thats just how I do it, but I do find it makes things much easier later on as you can blend for even yarn quality and you don't have to wash or dela with a whole fleece at once.
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mo
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Hi all
I am a total novice in anything to do with creating wool for knitting/weaving and come to spinning as a knitter who needs to be challenged. I have read all of your comments with great interest as I have just received 2 fleeces (last night): a suffolk down and a cheviot from a farmer friend in the south (I live in Dublin) and have them wrapped in a sheet in the shed...... I have done the research and also have a video on loan from the library and a pair of carders sitting on the dresser in the kitchen. I cant wait to start. However, I put in a full day at the office and am wrecked by the time I come home so I will be taking my time starting . Thank you all for your comments and guidelines on starting. I will let you know how I get on (off on hols at weekend so wont be back till Monday week). If there are any other tips that any of you experienced spinners could give me I would be more than grateful (my husband thinks I am nuts but we will see..........)
Cheers
Mo 
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Catherinechaos
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Thanks everyone for your fantastic advice - wish I'd found this place sooner.
My fleece has unfortunately ended up in the compost bin. It was really bad so I put it in a pillowcase and in the washing machine and the thing burst and the fleece was all over the inside of the drum! How I laughed! Anyway, I've filed the whole experience under experience and will know better for next time.
I'm now sticking to tops for the time being. Nice and clean and safe and the easy way out I know but there you go.
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Spinning Fishwife
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Everyone at our East Lothian spinning group was offered a Jacob fleece for free at sign up time last year, courtesy of a local smallholder that preferred the fleeces to go to a good cause rather than for peanuts to the Wool Board. I gave it a cursory going over before I washed it ..removed anything nasty, then basically composted all the rough bits and hairy stuff. I washed the rest (easy stuff to wash) then carded it up to give a roughly equal blend of black and white in each rolag. (I wish I`d had the drum carder then!) It spun up into a not very soft but super springy aran weight that just screams "jacket" at me. Certainly it would be too coarse and itchy to wear next to the skin. But it`s going to make a great jacket, when I eventually get round to knitting it up.
Now someone at my group also criticised me for spinning this up. Too rough, too thick, too...well, too much not like the stuff she was spinning, basically. This annoyed me a bit, to be honest. Why do some spinners think that the only "right" sort of yarn to spin is fine, perfectly even and preferably porrige coloured laceweight? (I exaggerate, but you know what I mean.) I can spin reasonably finely but I`d never knit with it so why bother?
I think if you`re spinning a yarn you like, that will suit your style of use and that will be suitable for a project that you`ll enjoy then really it`s no-ones business but your own what you spin. Yes, comments can be helpful but they have to be either positive or constructive criticism, and the person offering them should really back off if met by a stoney look! New spinners want to learn, not to be ticked off and discouraged.
To get back to the OP`s question about dirty horrid Hebridean though...Hebridean can often be quite nice, so it`s well worth washing a few handfuls to see what the fibre looks like clean, and spinning up twenty yards or so to see how it performs. If you like it them good, if you hate it you`ve lost a couple of hours of your time, learned something and the compost bin will love it. Dirt doesn`t necessarily make a bad fleece, though. Some fleeces undergo miraculous transformations when whahed.
My opinion is that most of us are really, really short to time and can`t afford to waste it on really crap raw fleece. Decent fleeces aren`t that expensive after all, not compared to the number of hours you`re going to spend on it. You don`t want to end up with something totally unusable either. Garbage in, garbage out?
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Catherinechaos
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Can I just ask, and this may be a stupid question, is the fleece that sheds from the sheep no good and I should always use a shorn one because I love the brown Hebridean colour and would give it another go if it was viable
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Spinning Fishwife
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You mean the Hebridean fleece you have is shed fleece? No particular reason you can`t use it that I know, except that it might be a bit more tangled than a shorn fleece. Unless of course you plucked the shedding fleece straight from the sheep, when it won`t be any more tangled than usual. Plucking the loose fleece straight from a sheep after the spring "break", when the new fleece starts rising and causing the old to shed is an old fashioned method of harvesting fleece, btw.
I would wash up half a carrier bag of it and see what you get, really. No fleecey experience is wasted.
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ClaireUK
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A tip from a shepherd - my father-in-law, 50 years a sheep farmer and third/fourth generation!!!
Use at least 10 x the amount of shampoo you would normally use. Fairy liquid is great. So is cheap shampoo (99p a litre) from supermarkets.
Start with hot water, pour in the fairy liquid after filling up the receptacle and gently stir so there are no suds. Place fleece gently into receptacly and leave til cold. Repeat, then rinse.
I tried it and it worked well with the suffolk fleece from hell I was given. I did it about 1kg at a time. You can see the results on the dyeing pages of this forum.
Hope this helps, Claire UK
Ps I have also found that some 'fibre snobbery' goes on, also fads. At the moment it is all Alpaca and Jacobs at my guild. Very nice but I'm sticking with my suffolk.
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hellomango
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I used to be a member of the York Spinning Guild, but I rarely went as I was put off by the yarn snobbery there. There were some lovely people, but I cannot stand the attitude that unless your yarn is miniscule and perfectly even it is all wrong and should be thrown away!
For me, colour & texture are far more important in a handspun yarn than evenness (word?) and perfection. If I want an even perfect yarn I will buy a commercial one!
Sorry to rant but I get annoyed by it.
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natalie
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The man who taught me to drop spindle said that lumps are great. People pay more for lumps!
n
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sally
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exactly, thats what I always tell new spinners. Lumpy yarn cost more!
Don't you find though that as the years roll by its harder to spin lumps? I tried to do some on purpose a while ago and just couldnt get it to look right. I just didnt appreciate how nice my early efforts were until it was too late to reproduce the efect 
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hellomango
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I totally agree Sally...I find that my yarn is becoming more and more even and I have to think about it if I want to do a lumpy yarn! Bizarre isn't it? I tend to concentrate on colours more though.
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spinningsue
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I like spinning as evenly as I can because that's the type of yarn I like to knit with. My spinning is not perfect though and I wouldn't want it to be! I can buy perfectly spun and dyed yarn but I get a lot more pleasure from using something I made!
I really like to look at the yarns other people spin and one day I'm going to try some 'designer' yarns and who knows if my weaving takes off I might find a use for them too.
I really dislike all kinds of snobbery and elite-ism because what does it achieve?
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hellomango
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Spinningsue, snobbery and eliteism achieves absolutely nothing. There is simply no need for it. I had a run in with an american lady once as she was criticising people's yarn for being overspun and underspun. She was really rude about it and I pointed out that people pay an awful lot of money for yarn like that and just because it isn't textbook perfect does not give you a right to be nasty about it!
At the end of the day, we all like different things and each skein of yarn is unique when it is spun by hand!
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ClaireUK
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I wonder if anyone went up to picasso, took the paintbrush out of his hand, and told him he was 'doing it wrong' ?
There is no right or wrong way to express our art unless it harms others, and unsolicited opinions come under the 'harmful' catagory in my opinion.
Claire UK
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spinningsue
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If I was Picasso, I think I'd take my paintbrush back and stick it right up their nose! Could do that with a spindle come to think of it... 
I think being willing to have a go and do something because you enjoy it is far more important than being a technically perfect craftsperson. That's not to say that technique doesn't have its place! But where would society be if some thinkers and doers hadn't been prepared to step outside the 'norm'?
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hellomango
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Absolutely! I approach my spinning in a very artistic way as I have an art and design background and that works best for me. Everyone is an individual and I think you have to let people find their own way.
The lady who taught me to spin said as long as you can knit/crochet or whatever with it then it is yarn. No matter what it looks like!
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julie1
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I keep Jacob sheep and yes, the wool can be scratchy sometimes. I swap any fleece I don't want for soft white wool, with my shearer. Many smallholders don't want their wool and just give it to him.
It pays to maintain a good relationship with your shearer.If you only have a small flock it can be difficult to find one in the first place, but I bribe mine by paying him well so that he comes when my fleece are ready and I don't get 'second cuts' in the wool.
He taught me to handshear this summer and is a goldmine of advice and information on all sheep matters.
They also make excellent meat sheep. As an older breed, they are slow growing so we like to keep them for a few years. I couldn't eat the greasy flavourless lamb the butchers sell.
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julie1
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I have helped other people to learn to spin in the past. They often seem embarrassed by their early efforts instead of feeling proud that they are mastering a new skill. I always tell them, ' if anyone asks why it is uneven or lumpy, tell them it's a designer yarn and supposed to look like that'.
Like many of you, I have met elitist snobs in the past. Their attitude doesn't mean that they are right, it just makes others dislike them.
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mo
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I am so pleased to read your entries on the end result of your wool spinning and indeed anything to do with creativity. I am a novice spinner and have just spun my first "wool string" at the weekend and I am so proud of it.......... I got such pleasure from just being able to do it and as I move through the bits of my self-carded fleece I am imagining all the items I could and will knit with it. So I stand up and cheer for all of us who are truely creative. Long may we live to enjoy it.
Cheers
Mo
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spinningsue
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My very first bit of spinning is the 'traditional' overspun, twisty, thick and thin and bright orange to boot. That little skein sits on my keyboard and is admired constantly by me! Most people would look at it and laugh but I know it was the first step on the road to producing yarn that I can use and, if I say so myself, is pretty good now.
I love that little bright orange lump of beginner's spinning!
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natalie
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I have my first bit of drop spindle spun yarn and my first wheel spun yarn, they aren't that different.
I love the idea of Picasso sticking his paintbrush up someone's nose!
I like spinning because its so unpredictable, if I wanted predictable I'd use shop bought DK for everything. "Vive la difference!" as the French say.
n
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hellomango
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I made my first spun yarn into a little crocheted circle and stuck some buttons on it. I don't know why but it looks so cute to me. Only thing is, my son decided he liked it and now it is lost in his bedroom somewhere!
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