[trish.farm]

I have bags and bags of coradale and romney fleeces stored away and would love to sell it to hand spinners.  Have googled locally in Hampshire in nothing comes up.  Wheres the best place on here to get myself noticed, or any other suggestions would be appreciated. thanks 

[Ladygrey]

I found a spinner shop, walked in and told them that they would love to buy my fleece off me and gave them all of the reasons why

Received a nice pay check last week after dropping a load of fleeces down there 

[Bionic]

Trish,
I'm not sure where abouts in Hampshire you are but google Ewe Too spinners. 

[smee2012]

Have a look to see if there's a spinning guild local to you. That's where I offered mine to. Having said that, I offered it for free, just so it didn't go to waste (only had 4 fleeces), in a raw state, and someone contacted me asking if I'd skirt it and wash it, and then deliver!! Cheeky mare. Needless to say, I didn't!

[Dogwalker]

http://ewe2club.co.uk/

[trish.farm]

ooh er!!  contact the guild for spinners bunch in Hampshire, they are meeting this weekend in my next door village and have invited me along with samples.   

One of the members has just contacted me to ask how many fleeces i have and how much per fleece!!! 

Any idea of sensible price for a romney fleece??  obviously not looking to get loads of money but would like to move them on!!

[Fleecewife]

Be sure they're good quality and price them accordingly. Some sellers sell by weight but you get mired in legal requirements then, so I sell by the fleece.  I hate it when folk give away good fleece - spinners should have more pride in their work than to take somebody's chuck-out stuff, and sellers should have pride in their product and charge accordingly.
However, as you are sounding out the market at this stage, I would suggest you pitch your price lower than you will next year, just to get a bite.  So somewhere between £8 and £10 this time around.  Watch carefully how they react when they open a bag, and if it's badly, then lower your price slightly (don't say anything in advance) but if they coo and ooh over it then put it up a bit.
A well-known seller I know gave me the advice when I was starting out 'set a price in your mind and double it'    As his starting prices are high anyway (the fleeces are wondrous) , only the real devotees of spinning will go for those prices, but he does adjust up or down according to the customers.   I've never dared to do the 'double it' thing 

It will also be a good opportunity to learn just what spinners are looking for in a fleece, so note which are the good and bad points they see.  Let people tip the fleece out on a clean table or the floor (I sometimes take a small tarp along with me) so they can see the whole thing.  Don't keep rerolling it though - once open keep it open until someone buys it or you take it home.

I'm very envious of Corriedale and Romney fleeces.  I would love to try some but at the moment I have way too huge a stash to justify more.......   Although my youngest son lives in Hampshire and does get up here sometimes 

[Bionic]

I bought a romeny fleece last year for £8. I am currently carding and spinning. There is a lot of it so still have a way to go but its very nice.

[sarahdean_66]

Do yiu have to sell in whole fleece, I've got slats shetlands castlemilks x's of all those as well so all bar 3 shed in bits so I peel loose bits off them would anyone still want to buy it?

[Bramblecot]

Trish, I took mine to a guild sale last year.  The buyers were very canny and it was a bunfight at the opening . 
The guild insisted everything was priced, in a bag and labelled with owners name and type/weight of fleece, and then took 10%.  Hopefully you may get away with something less formal.  I used the inner liners from paper feed sacks and stapled a businesss card to the outside.

[Bionic]

Sarah, most spinners would want a whole fleece.  You can card and spin from bits of course but a good spinner (thats not me) would want to see the whole fleece and be choosy when they spin, picking the fleece from the parts they know produce the softest fleece.

[ladyK]

Great thread!
I was wondering what to do with my Soay fleeces... going through my first shedding season just now and have been trying to roo/collect as much as possible but obviously it comes in bits.
Is that of any use of at all to hand spinners?
Or what do other people do with their Soay fleeces?

[trish.farm]

beginning to wonder what i have let myself in for!!!   

Have replied to lady who was asking price and said she needs to look at them first!!   

Wish me luck for saturday when i meet the guild members!!!!!

[FiB]

The best of luck and do report back   Great thread and expertise shared as ever.

[SallyintNorth]

I will know some of the folks you'll meet on Saturday, through Ravelry mainly, and I can assure you that if you are helpful and clearly wanting to learn how to present what spinners want to buy, you will be welcomed with open arms and given any amount of help and advice

It would be a good plan, if you haven't already, to read up the excellent leaflets Sarah Wroot wrote; you can download them from the Yarnmaker website here

I have some Romney fleece, and although it's not the softest of the longwools that I have got, it just makes you want to spin it.  So open it out as Fleecewife suggests, and let people handle it

I would climb over people to get some Corriedale fleece to try...  I think I may PM one of the Hampshire Ravellers; if she's coming to Woolfest again this year she can buy one of your Corriedale fleeces for me and bring it up at the end of June!

Be prepared that not all of your fleece will be appealing to handspinners, even though they are good breeds and should be.  There having been no attention paid to fleece for some time, due to its being sold very cheaply, there is now a lot of variation even in breeds that are supposed to have good fleeces for spinning.  And other factors affect the fleeces too; the weather, the health of the sheep, the workload (she may have had triplets, in which case she won't have put as much into her fleece as an untapped hogg), how it was clipped, how it was wrapped, how it was stored...

  some or even all of your fleece will be nice and you will learn a lot and make some friends - and hopefully start to build a customer base for the future.