Sheep Fleece, Roving, Yarn

“Jon’s biggest worry is that he’ll die and leave me with a bunch of animals to take care of”, I told Suzy. “Mine is that I’ll have too much wool.”

Suzy and I have only talked on the phone a few times.  Mostly we text each other.  But I needed someone to talk to who knows about wool so after she texted me a video of the mohair fleece from one of her goats this afternoon we got on the phone.

Suzy (who my sheep Suzy is named after) is a spinner and a knitter.  She’s sold many shawls, hats and fingerless mittens at the Bedlam Farm Open houses, some of them made with my wool.

We talked for a while about the different ways to process and sell wool.

A couple of weeks ago I met a felter at the Adirondack  Fiber Festival who was interested in Rosemary’s fleece.  This is the easiest way and least expensive way to sell wool.  It’s how Liz our shearer sells most of her wool.

The other way, of course, is just what I’ve been doing.  Making my wool into yarn.  My yarn sold really quickly this year.  I only have three skeins still available in my Etsy Shop.  The dyed wool sells best but it’s also more expensive to process.

Then there’s roving. (see the photo above)

Roving is used by spinners and felters.  It’s the wool cleaned and strung into long ropes that can then be hand-spun into yarn or made into anything from a scarf to a sculpture by felters.  It’s less expensive than yarn to process, but the last time I had roving made it didn’t sell well.

Suzy sent me the photo above of a friend’s roving that she just bought, dyed in three different colors, periwinkle, purple and chartreuse.  When I saw it I thought that if I had people on my blog who were spinners or felters, I’d have no problem selling dyed roving.

I know I have people on my blog who want my wool, but I don’t know how many spinners and felters are out there.  That’s when Suzy told me to ask my blog.

And of course she’s right.

So I’m asking.

Liz is coming on Sunday to shear our sheep.  So if anyone out there is interested in a whole fleece email me here at [email protected] with any me questions or thoughts.  I have Romneys, Border Leicester, Border Leicester/Cheviot and Karakul sheep.   I still don’t know how to price it yet, but there’s time to figure that all out.

And if there are any spinners or felters who would be interested in dyed roving, you can also email me here.  I haven’t chosen any colors yet, but will also begin figuring that out.

“Now I’m rethinking the fiber I was working on this afternoon all because of our conversation” Suzy texted me later in the day.

Our conversation got us both thinking creatively.  And it all started with Liz offering me two new sheep.