It seems like every 2 to 2.5 years I have to remind myself why I don’t process spinning fibre from raw fleece anymore. I gave this up in the summer of 2020 when I did some rough mental math and realized it was taking multiple chiropractor appointments to undo the damage I was doing to myself.
I thought I’d share my reasons that I can very easily justify paying someone else to prep my fibre these days.
In the middle of September, I found myself in possession of a new vintage or antique spinning wheel needing some rehab, an antique skein winder and Shetland fleece. The fleece is potentially as old as me.
What I can say for sure is that it was no longer greasy or sticky though the box it was in was labelled “unwashed”. It was also going to be a little bit of a challenging fleece to process by hand but I could tell that the neck and shoulder fibre was lovely and potentially worth it. I have a policy though of not storing a raw fleece in the house where cats can get into them and I won’t leave them outside in the garage because they encourage pests.
What makes a Shetland fleece a challenge? Shetland sheep are primitive breeds and many of them “roo” or shed their fleece. Some do this only partially over portions of their fleece. This is a natural phenomenon and ideally, the sheep will have the fleece removed either by hand with help from the shepherd or by mechanical means right at the same time this rooing is happening. This fleece was shorn after the sheep tried to roo it so there was old and new growth and they were sort of stuck together. This is called the rise and isn’t actually unusual but it means the two have to be separated or you’ll get a lot of lumps and bumps (from neps) and pilling in the resulting yarn. The traditional way to remove the rise is to grab both ends and give a tug. Typically this separates the two but if the rise is a little fulled it can take a bit of grip strength. That’s something my I.T. abused, Grave’s disease inflicted hands don’t have a huge amount of these days.
In addition, there was a little scurf (which is basically sheep dandruff) that I needed to deal with. These two challenges combined told me that potentially a modified “No fleece left behind” method may be the best approach. The hand cards helped remove the rise in the initial teasing of the fibre and did wonders for the scurf. The other thing that helped was ruthless skirting. As I had no investment in the fleece up until then, I didn’t feel bad tossing anything that was questionable. I think I threw out about 25% right off the bat while sorting outside – plus all the dirt that didn’t need to come inside.

That left me with just under 2lbs to wash and process. I washed it the following day and hung it outside for a few days to dry. It took me a half day to wash the whole fleece. What was left amounted to about 1.5lbs.
Next up was processing it to a stage where I could spin it into my chosen type of yarn (thin, as would be done for a Shetland ring shawl). I opted to flick (and use the No Fleece Left Behind method) and I can spin from there. My hands will barely stand up to about 100g (or about 3.5oz) of that at a time. They’re cut up and taped to protect them from the cards. It also takes me more than 4 hours to process 100g. Keeping in mind I have almost 700g of this, there was no way my hands would put up with me doing that for 7 days straight. So 50-60g (around 2oz) becomes a lot more reasonable. The downside of that of course is that it will now take 14 days to process the fleece and 50g still takes me about 2.5 – 3 hours. Thanks to the rise, I also have more than 50% loss to waste.

So, let’s think this through:
First, I started with about 2.5lbs of Shetland in the raw. My total spinnable fibre at the end of this was 337g. – or a little over 3/4 lb.
In order to get 100g of fibre, I need to process 200+g of clean fibre. That takes me between 12 and 14 hours. At a $15 minimum wage, I should make $180 – $210 for that time. Then power, water, gas, soap for the washing. Let’s guesstimate that at about $20 for the whole fleece because the price of utilities is obscene right now. Wear and tear on my cards (not to mention needing cards to begin with) and wear and tear on my body ($60+ for a single chiropractor appointment). This is in addition to what you paid to the shepherd for the fleece.
That means, for 100g of fibre, I’ve “invested” $230 – $250 in time, materials and wear and tear for 100g of fibre. That multiplies out to over $800 for the whole fleece that resulted in 3/4lb of fibre. I also think that this work is worth more than minimum wage – so that number should be higher. Higher still if consider my normal charging rate for computer or sewing machine repair work that I could have been doing instead of this.
Most undyed but clean/processed/ready to spin Shetland fibre I can buy is in the $15 – 20/100g range. It’s not very good economy, is it?
So, why do it? No local mill I know of will process a partial fleece and most won’t do it as diligently as I did to turn out such a lovely ready to spin fibre, especially not from such a challenging fleece. Some Shetland fleeces really benefit from hand processing.

Processing fleece to a spinnable fibre however is a labour of love. I just don’t love it. Back in the day when we took a fleece from sheep to shawl and did it repeatedly to clothe ourselves, it was necessary to do all these steps. These days, most of us spin/weave/knit for enjoyment and there are businesses who specialize in the steps we don’t want to do. I’d be miles and dollars ahead to utilize their services and my hands will thank me for it.
Now, not all fleece are like this fleece I processed. Some are gloriously easy to process. Take for instance the Finn/Gotland sample I did at the same time. I started with about 550g (about 20oz)

Washed it in a couple of hours after a very light skirting – it was already very well skirted by a friend – and hung to dry.

After that, I had a lovely half basket of fibre (about 430g) to comb.

Since I was downstairs anyway processing both fleeces, I opted to dye it since these breeds dye so beautifully. Longer wools tend to have a lot of lustre and that looks so amazing with the dyed locks. Plus there was no point in processing then dyeing because dyeing compacts the fibre, requiring some processing again afterwards.

Looks a little like unicorn barf, right? That’s not how it turned out though.

The biggest problem that happens with lovely locks like this is how much it poofs out when you flick card it. It becomes a bit of a storage issue because that half basket of locks filled that same basket 3 times over. The pic below is 1/4 of the fibre in the basket and another 1/4 in front of it.
It took me half as long to flick this fibre. I managed a steady 110g (almost 4oz) per 3 hour day and I pushed through on the 3rd day to finish in 3 instead of 4.

The other notable thing here is that I’m daydreaming about spinning the F/G. The Shetland hurt my hands, elbows, shoulders, neck and lower back so it needs to sit in the corner and think about its actions for a bit before I spin it.
Here’s the final stash I need to find storage for after about 25 days of fibre prep.


Here’s a small sample of what the rolags look like spun up. This is one one of my prototype small cross-arm spindles. There was a little dye transfer from the rolags so that yarn will be re-set when I finish it. That spindle will be bigger than life on all but phone screens. It’s 12g (a bit less than 1/2oz) including the shaft.


All that’s left now is about 275g of Cotswold lamb locks. They’re already clean and easy to separate. Those are awaiting a plan because I may choose to use them in lock format or I may prep them similarly to what I did here. Until I decide that, small amounts of clean fibre are easy enough to store. Maybe I’ll tackle it in another 2-2.5 years. Clean fibre keeps. It will be fine.

So, as to why I didn’t do the CAD work I was planning: I got a little distracted. I’m still working on the “Accidentally Epic” shawl though. I have about 75 -85% of it knit and about 90% of it spun.
More about the spinning wheel and skein winder that came with the fibre in the next post. Maybe a photo of the shawl too because I’m planning to pull the first 6 life lines so I should be able to spread it out and see where I’m at once I do that.
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