My first Art Yarn spun from the fleece that I bought last year. Yes, it’s taken THAT LONG to process. Bringing wool from sheep to shawl isn’t for the faint of heart. That and the fact that I bought 3 large fleece. There are many steps involved:
- Skirting/Sorting
- Washing/Scouring/Drying
- Combing
- Dyeing (if applicable)
- Carding
- Spinning
I tried the suint fermentation method this summer to get them clean quickly and on a large scale. As with all new things, it was a learning process of trial and error. It’s a method of allowing microbes that form from the sweat crystals in the wool to eat away at the grease while the wool sits submerged in a covered bin full of water in the heat of the summer days. Smelly? You bet. Messy? Yes, but it did get a job that would’ve taken me much longer to do by hand, done.
Here’s a couple of process pics:


And the finished skein:



55 yds, wool, recycled sari silk, lurex thread.
Take care and thanks for reading 🙂
Beautiful. It is a long drawn out process isn’t it? So satisfying to go from raw fleece to final product though.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s true Jackie!
LikeLike