[Nikkijw]

Hi all,
This is my first year of keeping sheep & im loving them! Ive hand reared from a few days old. I only have 5 & they have just been sheared for the first time. I wondered what others do with the fleece? It may be a bit far fetched but id love to find someone who could wash it, spin it and have a blanket made. Im in kent if anyone has any good ideas...? Thank you

[Fleecewife]

The best idea Nikki is to spin and weave it yourself  .  To pay someone else to do it would be prohibitively expensive.  There are spinning mills which will process your fleece for a price, and weavers who will make your blanket for you, but usually you need a minimum of 20-25 kgs.  The smaller the amount below that, the more expensive each kg is to be processed.  Have a look at the Natural Fibre Company for example.


What breed are your sheep?  Some sheep's fleece can be fairly awful to spin and use while other breeds have lovely fleece, especially their first shorn fleece.


I think [member=10673]SallyintNorth[/member] wrote a piece on here on how to assess your fleece (or maybe it was me, but Sally will know how to find it) and that is the first thing you need to do before you decide whether your fleece is worth sending for processing, or doing it your self, or whether it's a bin job!


25 years ago I was in the same situation as you are, with two Jacob fleeces, plus 7 Hebridean fleeces.  I bought a flat pack Ashford Traditional spinning wheel, built it up, then assigned myself 3 weeks to learn to spin using the Jacob fleeces.  Husband was told he would have to get all the meals for that time!  In those first 3 weeks, I had spun enough for a jumper - not well spun, but it was yarn of a sort.  Then I taught myself how to knit in the round, with a little help from a book, and another 3 weeks later I had my first ever jumper which I had made from my own sheep.  It lasted for years until I eventually handed it on tothe cat!
Quite truly, if I could do that, then so could you.  I must point out that I have never again managed to spin and knit a whole jumper in 6 weeks.
Nowadays there are plenty of you tube clips, books and local spinning groups who can help you to learn to spin.  It really is something else to make your own clothes and blankets from your sheep's fleece and well worth the effort

[SallyintNorth]

Oh boy, your faith is touching [member=4333]Fleecewife[/member] - but I think we must have done those posts before I started doing my ":bookmark:" thing.  Leastwise, i can't put my hands on any right now...

Nikki, absolutely agree with FW, best thing is to have a go at spinning yourself.  You might not like it, but a lot of us get hooked   But for the pandemic, I would have been telling you to find your local Guild map

However, if you want a small number of fleeces processed, there are some places will do it.  You're a long way from any of the places I know but you can always post or courier to and fro.  One is Halifax Spinning Mill (not in Halifax but in Bridlington) will do one fleece if you want sliver for spinning but needs 30kgs if you want yarn.  Griffiths Mill in Derbyshire will also take small batches, and I think will spin yarn for you too from a small batch.

[SallyintNorth]

And in the absence of our turning up any of Fleecewife's or my words of wisdom, this page is a good start point for understanding your fleece.  It has links to a plethora of other good information.