Friday, March 25

a woolly appeal

i enjoyed my first experience of working with raw wool at a recent workshop so much that i'd like to try some more and i'd also love to learn the techniques needed to hand process raw fleece to spin my own yarn and also to felt with.

but ... i'm having trouble locating larger amounts of raw fleece.

i would love to be able to try out fleece from local sheep as i think it would tie in nicely with my plan to be able to dye hand processed fleece with dye plants from our garden.

so, i guess my question is ... do you have, or know anyone who has, any fleece from (ideally) perthshire sheep they wish to get off their hands over the spring and summer?

i'd be willing to pay or swap some feltmaking workshops or handmade felt goodies by way of exchange.

8 comments:

Angela said...

I don't know any up your way but perhaps an appeal to local IFA members? Woolfest at Cockermouth in June is a good place to buy fleece. I once bought some organic Icelandic fleece from a farm at Nairn via this route, so you never know. Also very good for all kinds of other goodies.

If the British Wool Marketing board have any storage near you then you can also go and buy direct from it. Also worth trying local WSD (weavers, spinners, dyers) ?

FeltersJourney said...

Hi Tracy, I dont know anybody in your area.. but if you contact your local Weavers, Spinners & Dyers Guild they might be able to point you the right way.

I found the local farm were I get Jacobs fleeces through a freerange butcher who was selling Jacobs meat (he always states the breed type of his meat) - he put me in touch with the farmer.

happy hunting :)
Deborah x

Zed said...

I do see whole fleeces for sale on ebay quite often. They are usually under Crafts, other crafts, spinning. The postage is often around £5, but you might get lucky and find a local one that's free for pick up.

vilterietje said...

hey hello! i read about you on heather's blog andwas interested to see where you were from in scotland. I visit scotland 3 or 4 times a year and in summer we often passed crieff, but never went to visit it, next summer we will try and visit your shop.
good luck with your raw fleece, i just bought some shetland from a dutch sheep farmer, found on the internet.
love, riet:)

Tracy Markey said...

thanks angela for all these tips :)

d’oh, i never thought of asking through ifa!

i really must try to get to one of the wool shows this year, i think i’ll need to save up first though, or may bankrupt myself. haven’t heard of wsd before now so will go check them out.

thanks deborah, looks like wsd will be a good place to start.

think i may have found a place where i get some jacob from too, do you use it for wet or needle felting? have to admit to not knowing much about the different types of wool as i’ve been using merino only up to this point, can’t wait to try out different wools!

thanks for the tip about ebay zed, i honestly wouldn’t have thought of ebay for things like this!

hi vilterietje and thanks for visiting my blog. heather’s blog is great isn’t it? :)

next time you will be in scotland please let me know and it would be great to meet up.

unfortunately the delightful treasure trove isn’t my shop, it’s owned by my friend mandy and i know she would be delighted if you were to pop in.

vilterietje said...

i'll let you know when i'm in scotland and íll pop in your friends store anyway:)

Tracy Markey said...

brilliant, it would be great to meet up :)

FeltersJourney said...

Hi Tracy, I use jacobs for wet felting, I like it & find it felts well. I've also had Shetland fleeces, they felt really nicely too. BFL is another good felter (really soft, IMO pretty much as soft as merino) though I'm sure the fleeces will be quite a bit dearer than jacobs or Shetland. Gotland, Norwegian & Icelandic felt beautifully too (great for bags, slippers etc) Im sure there are lots of others - these are just the ones I have used
x