The wool along Rysa’s sides was some of the most interesting to process. It is nice and soft and has a surprising amount of luster considering the disorganized crimp and the weathering. Here’s the wool after washing. There is still enough lanolin in the wool to make spinning quick and easy. I’ll wash the skein in hot water with a bit of dish soap after spinning.
Weak tips needed flicking. You can see the light, wispy tips in the photo above. I considered trimming them with scissors, but they flicked off without any fuss.
The cut end needed some extra attention. In some Shetlands, a natural weak spot occurs each year when the old fleece separates from the newer fleece (the rise). There were just a few areas showing the rise, and the fiber flicked apart easily. Some locks showed some fiber crushing where the manual shears made a burr on the cut end. These also flicked out easily.
The photo below shows the downy undercoat on the left. The primary staple length after flicking off the tip, and a piece of the weathered tip removed. Over all, the locks lost around 1/2″, sometimes a bit more- esp if they also lost some length on the cut end. The down is approximately 1.5″. The primary lock is approximately 3-3.5″
At first, I thought to leave the two coats together combined and spin them as one. Unfortunately, the undercoat separated as I flicked out the grass and hay bits. I wanted to save the down for spinning, so I decided to pull it out and spin it separately.
There was a fair amount of loss. Of the 75 grams of washed fiber, I have a 34g roving. The down was only present in part of the side wool, so it only came to 7 g. The waste came to 34 g (~45%). There were some cotted locks, but it was mostly flicked ends, weak fibers, and very short soft fibers that were under 1/2″.
I did a sample spin from the flicked locks and found it was very easy to spin this into wire. However, when handled gently, it stayed a fluffy, lustrous grey-brown.
I ran the flicked locks onto my drum carder and pulled a roving. I ran the locks sideways for the first pass and then split the batt into thin sheets for the second pass. I used a 1/4″ hole in my diz and pulled the roving around the drum, clearing approximately 1 1/2″ of fiber from the teeth for each rotation until the drum was clean.
The fibers are fairly parallel, but the springy, disorganized crimp keeps it open and full of air. My first priority while spinning is to keep the softness with low twist and gentle handling. I do want to keep the fiber ends smoothed down and show off the luster in the yarn, so I’m going to do a bit more sampling to find the happy medium.
Once again, I don’t have tons of fiber to work with, so I need to keep samples small if I want to have enough yarn to use in a project.
Here’s the yarn . 10 wraps per inch, 6 twists per inch. 2 ply, semi-worsted (roving prep, worsted spin- forward draw on the 12.6:1 ratio, Schacht Matchless)
Spindles In the Wild 