[Bramblecot]

What to do with your fleeces ?  Dipped my toe in the water yesterday with my first visit to a fleece sale organised by the Guild of Spinners, Dyers and Weavers.

I took 12 fleeces from my crossbreed 3/4 Shetland x 1/4 Ryeland ewes shorn last month.  Various colours from black to white with several grey katmoget.
The sale started at 1030 and by 1100 all but 2 fleeces were sold .  Maybe I underpriced them, or were they just brilliant quality ?  The last one to sell was the black fleece priced at £6.00.

A lovely day, I will certainly go again.  Lots of helpful friendly people and I learnt a lot .  There is a sale at Exeter on 13th July.

[SallyintNorth]

The sound lovely, in which case £6 may have been a tad generous.  But it's always a good idea to make them irresistible the first time, then you should get repeat business another year.

[Fleecewife]

Definitely under priced.  I have been heard to say on many occasions    that spinners and felters should be willing to pay more than the fiver they were spending on fleece back in the 1970s.   What else could you buy for £5 or £6?  Not even a couple of glossy magazines  .  A fleece is something which will be worked on for months, then used to produce a finished article the maker will be proud of.  So you be proud of your product, the raw material for them to demonstrate their skill.
 
The coloured ones in particular should command at least £10, if they are clean but ideally more.  Those spinners knew a bargain when they saw it 
 
Still, as Sally says, maybe by starting them off with a bargain you are establishing a customer base     and learning about marketing at the same time.
 
Well done for selling them though 

[Bionic]

I think there is a small dividing line between selling too cheaply and asking too much. Its probably better that you more or less sold out rather than having overpriced and needing to bring them home again.
It gives you a good of what the spinner were after though and if they ejoy spinning your fleeces I am sure they would be prepared to pay a bit more next time.

[Bramblecot]

Well I had no idea whether my fleeces were rubbish (my shearer did turn his nose up when I said that I would try and show some) or really good or just plain average . 
To my eyes there was a lot of VM even though I spent all day picking out the worst bits and I took off loads of skirting.  My girls climb through the hedges. .
The organiser said she usually prices Shetland at £2 per lb.  I upped it a bit to around £2.50 as the guild take 10%, and kept the figures at whole £ or £.50p.  I felt rather apologetic about the very small Shetland fleeces but the pale grey shearling Shetlands were the quickest to go - I hadn't even got them on the table .
I asked all the buyers to send me some feedback so that I will know how my quality compares in the future.  There were quite a few folk loading up their stock as I left (including 2 shetland fleeces on the next table) but it was very nice to come home with an empty car .

What was it they did to prisoners?  - picking oakum    I'm off to sort through some more fleeces in the . 

[Bramblecot]

I should add that my little ewe store lambs  have now been given a reprieve by OH as a result of the sales .  Sorry boys, you've still gotta go

[Lesley Silvester]

Well done. It's a great feeling selling everything, I should imagine, even if you do wonder if you should have charge more. As everyone says, you can charge a bit more next year.