Another exciting happening around the Holidays was that while we were downstate we passed by Frankenmuth....and Zeilenger's had finished the Shetland Combed Top!!!! I delivered them 18 pounds of VM contaminated wool and received back 8 pounds of top, and a bag of noils in batt form. I don't know how much the bag of noils weighs as I had to leave it there since there wasn't room in the car for two big bags of wool, three dogs, three kids, Christmas gifts, etc... It will get picked up when our llama is done being dehaired.
The wool was from all of our sheep- neck bits, patches with too much VM in them to be practical to use, and whole fleeces in some cases. I primarily did this to save my sanity...that much VM would have driven anyone insane! It was expensive, but worth it in the long run. I won't probably be doing this every year as most of the sheep with open fleeces have been coated and I plan to keep them that way, but I'll save up the icky bits to send down when I have enough.
Close up- you can see some individual fibers. The sheep ranged in color from white, grey, three different shades of brown, shaela (silvery black) and black.
It ended up being a beautiful silvery dark brown and it is REALLY soft.
I was particularly excited by the way it came...in this big beehive of overlapping coils that was hollow in the middle. It was really neat!
I put a listing for some on my Etsy site. I hope to get a chance soon to spin some myself!
Wow, it turned out beautiful! How did they get the vm out? I have been going the "insane route" here myself.. our rams were in a pasture with grass that had gone to seed - arh! Those seeds are so tiny, but hopefully i'm getting it all out. I think i like your way better!
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