A sheep named Moo

Last year,  while setting up our booth at the New England Fiber Festival, I got to take a quick pre-show peek at the fleece sale and fell in love with a little spotted Shetland/Icelandic cross fleece.  And the most endearing part was that on the tag, the sheep's name was Moo.  

Moo had characteristics of both breeds of sheep,  but I particularly loved the Icelandic-ish coarser hair throughout.  The fleece also had vastly different lengths throughout,  which meant that there was no way for me to spin it in our mill, so I had a great opportunity to process by hand. 

Adam washed it for me in the mill because the big drum washer we have is great for cleaning without felting and also because the water temperature in the mill is set at 140 degrees,  which is hotter than the house allows and better for removing lanolin. 

Once it was dry,  I started hand carding.  I was lucky that my mother in law,  Mary, had a set of Viking combs in her stash.  The great thing about marrying into a fiber family is that you can swap stashes and tools as needed.  

(Combed fiber ready to be pulled into roving strips and the veg heavy discard.  I'm saving the discard in hopes of taking it to the mill and trying to de-veg it a little more and then spin the seconds separately) 

Combing the fiber has been on ongoing process. I've been winding the roving into little balls and I'm hoping to get a good amount combed before Pennsic so that I can leave my combs at home and just focus on spinning.    

But in the meantime,  I haven't been able to wait to start spinning,  so I've been slowly working on that as well. 

Adam made me a small bobbin to wind one spindle's worth of singles onto so that I could ply easily. So I ply a single off the spindle and a single from the bobbin together. 

And then I use a niddy noddy to wind the yarn of off into a skein.   So far I've gotten three skeins of about 84 yards each. 

It's definitely going to be a long,  ongoing process,  especially compared to what I'm used to in the fiber mill when a fleece this size would be done in about three days.   But after the dust and noise in the mill,  I'm enjoying the quiet, meditative process of working with this fleece and I can't wait to weave it into fabric for a very special Viking project.