I have enough Icelandic wool for a lifetime of spinning. If you have never seen an
Icelandic sheep, take my word for it - they are quite cute little sheep and come in a wide range of cool natural colors. In fact a single Icelandic fleece can be several wonderful colors from moorit to grey to white. One of the members of my spinning guild raises Icelandics (
Walker Forks Sheep Camp) and she routinely invites us all down on shearing day. What can be more enticing then choosing a multi-colored fleece while it is still on the back of a small cute sheep, then watching them shear it just for you? The result is a closet filled with Icelandic fleece, waiting to be spun. Now Icelandic sheep are a primitive, double-coated breed, with a soft undercoat and a coarse outercoat. Unless you use wool combs or a hackle to seperate out the shorter soft undercoat, your spun yarn is going to be, ..well... Let's just say outerwear only. A hackle is a set of sharp tines that you clamp to a table and run locks of the fleece through. Felting needles are dangerous enough for me, and I hate to test my insurance too far. So I have the fleece washed and carded into roving. And more roving. And more roving. In pure self defense, and knowing my own weakness, I have stopped attending Helen's shearing days. Right now I am trying to clear up a small corner of the closet by spinning up at one of the many fleece. What will the yarn become? Outerwear, no doubt. Perhaps it is time to start weaving rugs.....
Here are the early results of the fleece I am spinning. It is moorit (brown) Icelandic lamb fleece, washed and carded into roving by
Stonehedge Fiber Mill, that I overdyed green to get a nice mossy color. I am spinning it fine and plying it off a tensioned kate to make a 3-ply yarn that is sort-of DK weight. I still have a mountain of it to go. Then I will have a mountain of 3-ply DK-weight itchy yarn to make something out of. It should show a cable pattern nicely...
Here is another picture of it with Zach for scale.
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