This beautiful boy is Holiday, the Corriedale ram. He is a yearling ram this year in a friend's flock about an hour north of me. Another friend selected the fleece for me, knowing that I wanted a really special, colored fleece. Corriedale is a medium wool, excellent for hats and other outerwear. It is a great fiber for beginning spinners and a good, all-purpose fiber. I picked up the fleece in November and have been working with it over the last two months.
You see, Holiday's fleece has a range of shades from a a very light silver grey to a dark grey-brown. While ram fleece isn't always desirable, as a yearling, his fleece was still very fine. Rams gain a musky smell as they get older, so a yearling fleece is a happy find.
The first step in processing Holiday's fleece was to separate the locks, bag them, and scour them. By separating locks and bagging them, it keeps the fiber from felting while processing in a hot detergent bath. This is important because heat + water + agitation = felt. Sorting the fleece first, helps prevent agitation in the water. The fiber is then dried on a rack.
After dried, I sorted some of the fleece by color. The original fleece weight was 6.3lbs. I sorted about 11oz into a gradient. The rest of the fleece will be saved for a different project.
I chose to flick card the locks, rather do any other processing. I have a special flick carding brush which I used to open the locks and spin directly from the wool locks. The lock structure in this fleece was fantastic, and I wanted to enjoy it while I spun.
I spun from light to dark, then chain plied the yarn to maintain the gradient.
I ended up with 860 yards of yarn between fingering and sport weight.
Ultimately, I plan to make a gradient hat and cowl pair. The rest of Holiday's fleece is stored and waiting for another day, perhaps to become a hoodie. There's something rewarding about knowing the name of the animal that you'll be wearing one day.
