Looks beautiful renee! Do you have a plan for it?
We've clipped some of my fleece sheep and all bar three of the commercial hoggs so far. The hogg fleeces were, after last year, rather a disappointment.
Nothing like as delicious as last year's. I am assuming it's the long wet winter and cold wet spring, and am
very disappointed.
The fleeces from the Manxes are beautifully, sumptuously soft - but apart from a very few parts, all less than 1" staple.
I'll spin the bits I can, and hang onto the rest pending learning some needlefelting or other technique I can use - it's way too soft to just chuck out!
it's just that they were clipped late last year, before I bought them, and they'll have a bit more length next year.
The fleece from Buffy, the Shetland with a dash of BFL is, as expected, crimpy, soft and with a good staple. Maybe not quite as soft as I'd hoped, and certainly quite variable across the fleece, but a lovely soft toffee colour and I will enjoy using it.
Sadie, the 3/4 Shetland 1/4 Castlemilk Moorit, is a wanderer, and before they were moved to their current paddock had wandered at will around the farmstead. I knew she was getting a lot of hay and chaffy stuff in her neck and back wool, but as I expected her mainly black wool to be pretty coarse compared to Buffy's, I'd not worried about it, thinking I'd not mind chucking any that was too heavily impregnated with VM to be bothered with. Some of her fleece is quite coarse - but some of it is
gorgeous! So so fine, incredibly crimpy - oh my goodness. So now of course I regret letting her play in the haystacks...
The CMs weren't quite ready to clip yet; they look to have a better staple length than the Manxes and than the CM wethers from last year - so
I'll finally get some sumptuous rare breed fleece I can actually spin!
