Where do I begin? ... with the spinning, of course!

I have a number of ouessant fleeces : some are from my flock, a few have come from the flocks of other ouessant breeders. I was lucky enough to receive Ciska’s fleece. Ciska is a one year old brown (noisette) ouessant ewe. This is just a beautiful fleece. It’s a medium brown with light sun-bleached tips and overall length is approximately 12 cm.

Ciska : Staple length approx. 12 cm

Generally speaking I try to spin to gage so that all my yarns can be mixed and matched. I prefer spinning a fine yarn which knits up at 8 stitches per inch on 2mm needles. Looking at the quality of Ciska’s fleece, I decided to try spinning in the grease. Just perfect! All I had to do was gently pull apart the fleece and spin! What could be easier! The color is just beautiful. The sun-bleached tips add a subtle brown “tweed” effect. Just lovely!

Ciska : Raw fleece and spun yarn

It will take me some time to finish spinning her fleece ... but in the meantime I will be making plans for all those skeins of beautiful brown yarn.