Virginia Farm Wool Works
How much fleece do I need?
Raw wool contains vegetable matter, minerals, suint (sweat), wax or lanolin, moisture and clean dry wool. The average yields of clean dry wool vary according to the breed, but generally Merino types yield 62 70% of clean wool after processing, whereas Cross-bred fleeces yield 70 77%.
When buying fleece to spin, it is important to buy
sufficient for the project you have in mind, as it is very difficult to match a
naturally coloured fleece exactly if you run out.
From the above yield percentages, if your garment
needs 1 Kilo of clean spun yarn, then you would need to start with 1.3 Kilos of
Cross-bred fleece or 1.45 Kilos of Merino.
If you have a favourite knitting pattern which needs
16 50 gram balls of 8 ply equivalent yarn
(double knit), you will need to start with at least 1.2 Kilos of fleece to allow
for losses in washing and carding. It is
helpful to attach a length of commercial 8 ply yarn to your wheel as a visual
comparison for thickness as you are spinning.
Dont forget that you must spin to only half the thickness to allow for
plying!
Choosing
your fleece.
A good spinning fleece should be open, sound, long
stapled with even crimp. It should be
well skirted and free of vegetable matter and manure. It should also be a suitable type for the
end product you have in mind.
Heavier garments which need to wear well or yarn which is to be used as
a warp in weaving, will need a longer and stronger
fleece than that chosen for babywear or fashion
garments.
When choosing a fleece be
sure to check it for faults such as:
A break (or window) When given a sharp
tug, a staple of wool will part in the middle. This
fleece should be avoided as it will break under hand preparation and cause
pilling in the finished garment because there are so many weak ends in the
yarn.
Canary Stain a band of unscourable yellow stain across sections of the
fleece. Can be a disaster in a white
fleece! Check a staple in hot, soapy
water to see if it is stain or just a heavy lanolin deposit which will wash
out.
Sticky indicates a fleece (particularly
Merino types) has been shorn a long time ago and the lanolin has gummed the
fibres together making it hard to draft
Colour Change In naturally coloured
fleeces, changes in feed often cause a band of altered colour across the
staples. It does not affect the strength
of the fleece but can appear as a mottled colour in the finished garment though
this can be attractive!
Cotting and
Cross Fibres This usually occurs in the fleece from an aged
sheep. The whole fleece hangs together
like a floor mat and it is very difficult to separate individual staples. The fleece often feels dry and harsh and has
poor crimp definition.
Vegetable Fault -
contamination with burrs, prickles, hay, leaves, twigs and feed such as
oats. Most commonly
around the neck and legs, and this should be skirted off before sale. A fleece with burrs in it is a misery to
spin and carding does not remove them but merely chops them up and spreads them
throughout the fleece!
Unless you have a source of very clean fleeces for hand
spinning, it is often preferable to pay the extra for a coated fleece
(where the sheep has worn a coat all year).
The advantage of this is that the wool under the coat will have no vegetable matter (VM),
and will not have weathered or faded tips from the sun, giving a good true
colour in a dark fleece.
Unevenness of type and crimp - If you are buying a
whole fleece, spread it out and check a staple from at least 3 areas of the
fleece (shoulder, hindquarters and mid-side)
Normally themed-side wool is the best, but they should be
fairly even. If the
hindquarter sample is much coarser and hairy, then this should be avoided as it will
spoil the quality of your garment and in a white fleece a hairy section with
kemp in it will dye differently.
How
do I know what to ask for when I want a fine or a strong fleece?
Before
Australia went metric, the fineness of a fleece was quoted in Bradford Quality
Count, based on the number of 560 yard hanks of wool that can be spun from a pound of fleece. The finer the fleece, the more hanks
could be spun from a given weight and therefore the higher the number e.g.
64. A coarse fleece such as Lincoln
might give only 44 hanks, so was called 44s count.
Where
woolclassing is done by eye in the shearing sheds,
this standard is still used.
However,
wool for sale through the auction system is now laser tested and scientifically
measured and its diameter is expressed in microns. In the reverse to the quality count system,
the lower the micron number, the finer the fleece.
The
following table gives a rough equivalent of the 2 systems:
Micron Quality Count
19
= 70s fine
20
66
21
64
22
60
24
58/60
25
/26 58 medium
27
56
30
50
33 46 strong
34 44