Freshly washed and in progress – Suffolk.
This Suffolk fleece came from Black Sheep Gathering in Albany, Oregon. I grabbed it at the last minute on my final pass through the fleece market. The breed was not marked, but it was dense, fluffy, nice crimp, not terribly dirty, and in my price range considering I just spent a boat load of money at the market and already purchased two other big raw fleeces.
After months, I finally got around to sending a couple of emails to find out exactly what kind of sheep this lovely fleece came from. A very nice coordinator at BSG contacted the ranch where “Bella” resides. Heard back, Suffolk! Suffolk was not on my “learn more about” radar. I hadn’t ever even considered it. I am so glad I grabbed this fleece. I love it.
It was a real pleasure to wash. Most of the dirt came off in a pre-soak. The lanolin came off with one wash. Beautiful fleece with half the wash work! It’s a nice white and has all the characteristics you expect from the breed.
Suffolk is a down breed. This fleece is medium, slightly on the softer side of medium. It cards up wonderfully on the drum carder and hand cards. The first quick sample yarn I spun straight from a lock, separated with my fingers and spun on a wheel (a). I get so eager to test once a fleece is washed and dry! I spun an extra nice lock on a support spindle as well – teased by hand (b), it was easy and nice spinning (note: Don’t judge my sample too much. It was a grab and go situation. Spun to test the wool, not make a perfect yarn.). The last sample, which I just spun up yesterday, is from roving I made on my drum carder (c) and (c2).
I have three small batches (6 ounces each) of this washed fleece in my Etsy shop. Coming up, I’ll have either batts or roving available as well. Feel free to contact me via email if Etsy isn’t your thing.
Spinning and curiosity, that’s how this happened.
Wool by the fleece. I need a small spread sheet to keep track of it now. It happened so subtly I barely even knew it was happening. I almost feel like an innocent bystander. Except I can’t deny, this is all my doing. I just want to learn more about different sheep breeds. Seems like a simple idea. By the fleece makes a lot of sense. It’s a good amount to work with. I get to see, feel, smell, and spin the whole thing (or the parts I choose) starting from it’s natural state. Still seems fairly simple. It is, until the boxes of wool fill the master bathroom and begin to block walkways in various parts of the house. I suppose it’s not a lot of wool in general, but it’s a lot of wool for me. A lot of wool and a lot of knowledge gained! As I work my way through fleece by fleece, I thought it would be mutually beneficial if I shared my wool bliss – informational tidbits and actual wool with others.
About two years ago, as a trial run, I purchased just over one pound of raw fleece at a fiber festival – Gulf Coast Native from a farm here in Texas. It was a slow start. I’m always a slow starter in actual physical time – it probably took me at least a month to test wool washing. After a trial run, or two or three, with the end result finally meeting my expectations, I got a good, clean, felt-free washed wool. So exciting! That excitement never wears off. It happens with every new batch of wool. I’ve been working this way for a couple of years at, what I would consider, a mostly ultra slow pace. As I go, it becomes more clear to me how to handle things and find techniques that work for me. A lot of “my technique” is actually time management. Ah, time management, the key to so many things…how I have struggled my whole life with this concept… That aside, a momentum is finally becoming a thing! While I’m not trying to rush through like it’s a big ol’ race, I do have to admit, about half way through, I get excited at the prospect of getting my hands on the next fleece. Despite the pressure of time vs. quantity, my goal is to enjoy the work and make some nice yarns by the end of every fleece.
So, pounds and pounds and pounds of wool to wash and use… in comes my Market Days booth (October 2019)… followed by an Etsy shop for good measure. It makes a lot of sense to me, to make wool available in all different stages of hand processing. I love it; I figure there are lots of wool loving/wool curious people who want to experience various types of non-commercially processed wool without the big investment of time and space. So, that’s what I offer, small batch fiber (sometimes very very small), random breeds, in various stages, starting at washed all the way up to ready to use yarns.
If your curious about wool in all different stages of hand processing, you want to keep an eye out here, Instagram, and find wool to purchase at my Etsy shop. There is lots more to come.
Starting with a raw fleece means I get to touch every inch of that wool to make a yarn. It is a satisfying (and once in a while arduous) process. It must satisfy some sort of innate primal, primordial basic human function/need to create to survive. Ok, ok, that’s getting a little too deep… I love to process wool from raw fleece to make yarn. That’s what I do. Doesn’t matter why. I do it. It’s a good thing.
It’s a process that should start with a mental grip on the fact that it will take time. It takes the time it takes. It will be an antsy cumbersome drudge if you expect it to go quickly. Sometime it provides a quiet break from everyday interactions. Sometimes it’s a great time to listen to those 30+ hour audio books that you first purchased as real books years ago but never got to actually reading.
I split the tasks up into days and weeks. After it’s all washed and dry, I can do “drive-by” flicking and combing/carding if needed. Organized piles are always there ready for the next step. In fact, begging to be handled and transformed into it’s new existence.
The Key: must keep washed wool within site. It’s like the ring from Lord of the Rings except no bad guys, no evil, no elves, no hobbits, no ring…ok, it’s not like that at all. But the wool has some kind of spellbinding power and the magic will always draw you near.
An entrepreneurship urge drives me … a little bit crazy. It whispers, it whines, sometimes it howls, it nags at me. It seems like the right thing to do. Haha, but I’ve been down this road before! Can’t fool me. Business is tricky. Having a little single person business is like riding a teeter totter alone. Up and down, the other side always needs your attention as much as the side you are on. To keep it going in it’s intended motion, you either have to move to the other side or push hard from the side you are on to keep it moving. If you decide to sit in the middle, it basically feels like each side is neglected just a bit. The balancing act never ends. But hey, that is just life anyway – sustenance, balance, sanity…we were made for this. Here I am, gonna give it a go.
“This time it will be different!” – always announced with bright ambitious energy.
Fiber Fate is small, for now. It’s a tiny business with small quantities of handmade and hand processed goods. Fiber Fate is a place to find unique yarns and wool in all stages of hand processing for spinning. I thought others could benefit from my curiosity. My interest to find out what wool is like straight off the sheep for all the different sheep breeds in the world. Hilarious – I doubt I’ll get to all of them. So steadily and slowly I’m working and sharing via Fiber Fate. I want to share my love of wool and yarn and things that are earth friendly and natural. I love making yarn. I love working with wool. I love the practice of less trash, less plastic, offering alternatives within this modern throw away (majorly polluting) system. As tiny as Fiber Fate is, even small can make a difference – a lovely yarn here, a totally functional reusable bag there, a small section in a weavers weft, a head protected from the cold.
I joke with my family that the sloth is my spirit animal. I’m not sure it’s really a joke though. Slow and steady is my natural pace. I like to work alone. I like taking my time and doing a good job. I like to do one thing at a time. And I don’t mind time consuming tedious work. If I can have silence while doing it, it’s the perfect working environment – calm, meditative, “free-thinking” time… ah, how wonderful…
Snap back to reality. Of course, that is totally ideal, we all know ideal isn’t always the norm. Lots of times there is balancing time, juggling projects, interruptions, kids, animals, other human beings around making noise… Regardless of the perfect (or not so perfect) working environment, I’ll take wool work any way I can. 15 minutes or hours upon hours, as long as I get my daily sloth-like dose, I’ll be ok.
#awoollife: all the knowledge and prep and practice of wool and creating with wool has no finish line. There is no point at which I will be able to say, “there we go, that’s enough, I pretty much got all I need”. Lured and spellbound by spinning and wool, the desire is firmly planted. I could not imagine a life without this kind of naturalness.
Being pretty new, looking ahead, it’s a long road. Or is it a shorter road with lots and lots of roundabouts and cul-de-sacs? Doesn’t really matter much. As long as there is movement, an element of learning more often than not.
Some days it is how to spin a certain wool in different ways. Some days it’s how to get that wool washed and prepped. Sometimes it’s simply reading or forum chatting about wool…and wool tools, of course. Some days it’s this wheel vs. that wheel or a wheel vs. a spindle. And let’s not forget all the different kinds of wool there are in the world to explore. Limitless…
Oh that first step, and where to start…I’ve been putting it off almost 6 months now (this time). This site has been repurposed now for the third time. It started out as an art gallery website back in 2014/2015, went pretty well. Then as the gallery closed it’s doors, there was an attempt to transition into a pop-up gallery site which, unfortunately or fortunately, failed pretty miserably. I think it was more of a rebound business to fill the hole made by loosing the art gallery. Hole unfilled, it quickly moved to a personal site for my painting and yarn work.
Fiber Fate came into existence only a few short months ago in October 2019. I thought it would be fun to sell some of my handspun yarn at an outdoor mega market in Wimberely, TX, just south of my location in Austin. It is fun! I love trekking out there once a month to share the things I love – handspun yarn, crocheted accessories, fiber for spinning, paintings and prints.
So, here I go, getting the website better organized, better maintained, adding some projects that have been sitting on the back-burner, and starting the BLOG. Once the blog is started, it’s all-in, haha.