Monday, March 2, 2015

Bond Fleece

This is Willis' fleece. Willis is a Bond; these are pretty rare in the U.S. and I'm so glad to have 4 pounds of this delicious wool. 






Look at that crimp! The color is so pretty too. It is what I'd call beige but it does have a lavender undertone. It should take dye beautifully (off- white fibers often take dye better that pure white), if I can bring myself to dye it.

A couple of things that I learned in handling this wool: it is greasy as it is related to Merino and it is a lot stronger than it feels. I didn't use hot enough water during the first wash and had to rewash a whole lot of fiber. Also, when I started running it thru the drum carder, I was going very slowly and feeding little tiny bits of fiber with the carder set on its slowest speed. It was taking forever to get carded so, on a whim, I turned the carder up as fast as it would go and everything seemed to work better. The licker in was picking up more of (the few) second cuts and the batts had fewer neps/noils and etc. Who knew!





Here's a pic of one the batts held up to the light. They really did turn out nicely.

I'm spinning this on my Schacht- Reeves. Here's a bobbin shot of some yarn left over after plying. I'll post some pics of the finished yarn when it dries. 
Bond is delightful to work with; I'm really enjoying this fleece.