Meet the Fleece

 I'd like to introduce you to Winston and Finley. They are the sheep that donated their fleece for my 2014 TdF project.

  I was thrilled about having some Shetland to wash until I found this in the carding room. I forgot all about the Shetland fleece I just bought in September. Boo, me.

 I pulled out some of the new stuff into locks to give them a quick wash so I could see what I had.

 Washing Shetland is a bit trickier than the Merino I did this way last summer. Shetland is fuzzier so it's a challenge to get it all in the jar of soap.

 It also balled up more than the Merino did when I scrubbed it on the bar of soap.

 It did come out very clean.

 There was also fewer dirty tips to cut off than I expected.

 I pulled it through the carder to straighten it out for spinning.

It's spinning nicely. I am going to make this a wheel project once the Tour de Fleece gets started but I am going to sample it on the spindle for now. I want this to be another shruggy type thing that I wore all winter so I need to figure out what kind of gauge I'm looking at here. As if I really know what I'm talking about. In other words, I'll figure it out as I go along as usual. For now, I just want an excuse to play with it.