Best Fleece

I told you about the BFL/Suffolk cross fleece I got a few weeks ago but haven't been able to post any photos yet.  This fleece is just beautiful.  Every person I've talked to about this cross (everyone who knows that there is more than one type of sheep, that is) has raised their eyebrows about the odd mix.  But it's a wonderful fleece and washed so beautifully.  And much of that is hats off to the shepherd.

 It started drying out on the porch but later had to move indoors because my poor fleece was getting cold.  But here's what I was left with.

How great is that?

I haven't gotten too much of it spun because I've been working on some things for the Prairie Weaver's program on Tuesday night (a lot of things) but I did do a little sample spinning straight from the lock.  No photos exist because the experiment didn't go all that well, to be honest.  So I changed and decided to try to comb a bit of it and see how that worked.

 I didn't need more than 1 pass, really, with the combs for it all to jump open so now that I've done my little experiment, I think I can get the rest of it prepared pretty quickly.  I spun it fairly thin, although not extremely so because I want to get a finished sock weight (fingering weight) 3 ply yarn from it.  Here is the singles waiting to be plied and washed. 

I'm very excited to get this working, although it's going to take a lot more attention that just spinning from prepared roving. There's just something so tactile and satisfying about starting from the beginning and getting something to be proud of out of it.  It's what I love so much about spinning cotton from the seed.  It's basic, elemental and so satisfying to complete the cycle.