A New Appreciation

Let me preface this post by stating emphatically, I don't have a clue about raw wool. Having said that I'll move on to what I was doing all afternoon - skirting raw fleece, and I use the term skirting loosely.

Parents of my friend, Lisa, own a flock of sheep. The principle use of the sheep is as natural lawn mowers of the 100+ acres of farm land. Lisa explained one day that almost all the sheep are white, but there is one that is brown. Would I want the wool? We struck a deal of pennies on the pound. A few weeks after Thanksgiving, this was delivered.

I pulled a few fibers from the bags and consulted with my local spinning store owner. She felt that it was worth a try to process. She gave me the name of the mill they use and some helpful internet sites about cleaning the fleece.


This weekend hubby is out of town and so there was adequate room in the garage to examine my sheep. Doesn't look like much when unceremoniously dumped from it's bag.


From what I read, once I unrolled the fleece it would look like a sheep. Skirting is where I was supposed to remove the course fleece from the belly, any leg fleece that had been dragged through the mud, and the fleece that resided near it's, well you can guess that last part.


I had three lumps that rolled out to look like this. I don't see a sheep. If you do, please send me an email indicating where it's head used to be.


Given that I couldn't figure out belly from back nor head from tail, I went by feel. Some of it was obviously extremely muddy, matted, or otherwise not good stuff to keep. Other sections felt like greasy wool roving and I guessed that was ok to keep. I've called the mill and they agreed to review samples of the fleece to let me know if my efforts will amount to anything.

I don't think I am any the wiser when it comes to raw fleece. However, I have gained a greater respect of those that choose to process their own wool to spin.