My sheep's wool

Earlier this year, I sent in my raw wool from last year's shearing to a processing mill in Ontario (Wellington Fibres). I had it processed into Roving, which is wool that has been washed and carded, and is now ready for spinning into yarn. I recently received my shipment back and was absolutely thrilled with my fibre. There were 5 bags of different coloured rovings: white, light musket, dark musket, grey and black. Although it took a long time to get it back and with shipping it cost a fair bit, I'm very pleased with the quality. I have decided to sell it all to recover the cost of processing. About half is already sold, and the other half will be sold at the Ottawa Valley Weavers' & Spinners' Guild 30th Annual Exhibition & Sale coming the weekend of Nov. 5, 6, 7 at the Glebe Community Centre, 175 Third Ave. Ottawa.

Looking at all the fleeces from this year's shearing, I'll need to rethink my strategy. I have and plan to sell whichever raw fleeces I can and in the meantime will start to process my fibre myself. For my birthday and Christmas last year I received a very generous gift from my father and father-in-law...my long desired Patrick Green Deb's Delicate Deluxe Drum Carder with fur drum. I've been on a big kick lately to process the fibres I had already washed. The carder is working beautifully with my Shetland fibre. On top of that, its been getting colder here and there is no doubt that winter is on its way...and with all the woolly creatures I have grazing my little pastures, I have nothing I've made from their fibre. So its time to get busy making socks, mittens and my dream Shetland lamb sweater made from Annie, one of the original girls from my flock. She was the only lamb in the group and I sheared her wool myself with scissors and handshears. She represents my first fleece from my own sheep and incidently, she had my first lamb ever too, so she and her lamb Anakin are my farm tag logo.