Earlier this year at Maryland Sheep and Wool I bought a 6.25lb Corrie cross fleece.  I bought it because it varied in color from soft, smoky gray to deep black and even had a bit of brown in it (that wasn’t sheep filth).  It also had great crimp, a long staple length, excellent lock structure and virtually no VM.

I cleaned and spun a handful of it when I first brought it home and it was just as delightful as I’d hoped, but it’s been sitting behind me ever since waiting patiently to be scoured.  It did have plenty of lanolin and no short supply of dirt and sheep poo.  So I tackled it yesterday.

Before:

(This is on a king size fitted sheet.  I didn’t have any flats I could sacrifice.  Click to make it bigger!)

This is after being washed twice and rinsed twice and put through the spin dryer:

And here’s a lock showing structure (lots of the locks came through in one piece despite my less than careful handling) and length:

So what’s the plan for this happy, fabulous wool?  I’m going to knit a sweater, but not just any sweater, oh no, we can’t have that.  I’m going to knit this cardigan:

Those who know me will notice the beavers and understand.  I’m going to dye and spin this wool so I can make this cardigan.  Don’t worry, it won’t be in boring brown ;)

So that’s the new feature, my Sheep to Sweater adventure.  I plan on hand combing the fiber into top.  It was sheared really well so there aren’t many second cuts (I’ve actually found all of 3 or 4 while scouring) and it combs beautifully with little waste.  Plus I seem to like spinning from combed top than carded fiber.

I’ll update as I progress, should be fun! :)