I often get asked to explain the steps involved to go from fleece to yarn. I’ve now processed around ten fleeces, and have slowly adapted my technique to become to a fairly smooth workflow. The four steps can be followed sequentially for a whole fleece. However, I prefer working in batches of about 1kg to avoid monotony!
Processing fleece to yarn nevertheless remains a time-consuming endeavour, so best line-up some good podcasts or audiobook, especially brushing and carding stages! 1kg of wool takes me about four hours to process to the spinning stage.
Besides a fleece you will need:
a small dog brush (a few ££ at a pet shop – much cheaper than carding brushes!)
small pouches made from tulle (inexpensive and easily made)
washing-up liquid
a drum carder
a spinning wheel
Step 1 – plucking and brushing. Obtain a quality fleece, discard bad bits and any lumps of organic matter. Then take small plucks of unwashed wool and brush these with dog brush. This preparation step takes the longest, about 2½ hours for a 1kg of wool.
Step 2 – washing. Stuff the loosened brushed fleece small the tulle pouches, and sew these closed by hand. Wash the wool in your sink, using near boiling (!) water and washing up liquid. Use a kitchen utensil to avoid burning our hands. You’ll be amazed at the amount of dirt and lanolin that comes off the wool. Dry the pouches on a rack. This step takes about half an hour for 1kg of wool, not counting drying time.
Step 3 – carding. Card the washed wool. The brushing and washing make this a fairly easy − but nevetheless exhausting − process. Most of the dirt that is still stuck in the wool will come out now.  I store my carded fleece, or roving, in vacuum sealed storage bags from IKEA. Compact and moth proof! Carding takes about an hour for 1kg of wool.
Step 4 – spinning. The roving is now ready for spinning, and the yarn can then be wound into skeins or balls of wool ready for knitting. The time involved in spinning depends greatly on the thickness the yarn you’re after. It takes me about four hours to spin 100g of the course two-ply yarn used in my felted hats, infinity scarves and snoods.
