A Coloured Romney Fleece to Spin

A trip to the Somerset Guild Fleece Fair was the highlight of this year's June Spinning Camp. After a week of rainy days and nights spent listening to the tent flap around me like a washing machine, Saturday dawned fine and full of promise. My last set of clean clothes had remained presentable, even the complicated journey along the lanes across the levels went without a single wrong turn, arriving at Hatch Beauchamp just as the Fair opened. Two friends on the inside, experienced Guild members both, had promised to keep a look out for the perfect grey fleece while the farmers were setting out their stands. As the doors opened, they steered me straight towards it.

Back at home, I looked up from unrolling my Romney on the lawn.
"That one's a beauty, but it wasn't the best fleece there, was it Beaut?"
"How did you work that out, Elinor?"
My companion shrugged.
"Call it intuition. You look one plastic toy short of a Happy Meal."
True enough, even as I arrived at the Ashbury Romney's stand, somebody else had got her purse out and was paying for the exact fleece my friends had pointed out. No matter, the farmer, Philip Prouse, had plenty of other gorgeous specimens for me to choose from.
Surveying my new purchase, I picked off a few wisps of hay.
"I was entirely satisfied when I found this beautiful clean, soft, variegated grey, shearling coloured Romney sheep fleece and it looks just as good now as I when I stashed it in the car boot." 
"So what's eating you?"
I sighed.
"After I bought it, I met another friend from camp who had a stand in the marquee. She'd nipped into the hall before the show actually opened and bought an even finer, absolutely amazing silvery grey Romney. It was under her table and she showed me."
My companion roared with laughter.
"Don't let the green eyed monster steal your joy, Beaut."

Soon as my sleeping bag was rinsed and drying on the line, I set to skirting the edges of the fleece. It's a shame the darkest colours are always on the shorter leg and belly wool which gets most matted, but this big fleece had few second cuts and no weak points in open locks with a staple of from 10 to 15cm.

Lustre gleamed along the even crimp. I'd have been happy to spin this fleece with no preparation, just picking apart the freshly shorn locks. Still, having a couple of weeks in hand before the Tour de Fleece, though I hadn't got a suint vat fermented, I decided to set one up for the summer by soaking the Romney for a week in a 90 litre container of cold water.

After one more day having a second rinse in fresh water then a couple of days drying out, the fleece had lost most of its dirt and much of its smell, though a moderate amount of lanolin remained. Though the colour variegations could be split into many shades of grey, I divided it into three broad categories. There was never any real doubt in my mind, there would be no combing or carding the wool, this fleece was begging to be spun from the lock.

Just a few bounces with the flicker was enough to open the tips and butts of the locks. With a small pile of locks prepared, I tried four options, results shown on the card below, described left to right.

Spinning from the fold longdraw, pointing my finger at the orifice of the spinning wheel and pulling backwards was the quickest process, though spinning from the fold short forward draw, with my finger at right angles to the orifice, gave a smoother and more even yarn. Spinning from the butts or the tips produced yarns somewhere in the middle.

I spun samples in fingering weight and chunky to compare. 

"The worsted effect from spinning forward from the fold works well at any weight of yarn, but I think I'd best spin chunky three ply for a thick jacket. This Romney is lovely, but not quite next to the skin soft for knitting the thin cardi I had in mind." 

I heaved a sigh and my companion looked stern.

"Old Green Eyes, stop pining for that fleece you didn't buy. Make a friend of this one."

I've taken Elinor's advice. And I've used the fingering weight Romney sample to make her a friend with green eyes. 

On the Origin of Sheep Fleeces by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life

My companion, Elinor Gotland, put her teacup into the sink.

"That was a good Christmas, Beaut. Now the last visitors have gone, we can spend the weekend cleaning the house and sorting out the recycling, then start on our New Year's resolutions."
Scooping up another armful of torn wrapping paper, I discovered an open box of chocolates and helped myself. 

"This is not the time for good resolutions, Elinor. When the days grow short, it's human nature to eat, drink and be merry. I'll bet cave women just sat by their fires on long, dark evenings like these, telling stories, passing round the nibbles and doing their knitting."

Squirting washing up liquid into the running water, Elinor handed me a tea towel. 
"Knitting was only invented a couple of hundred years ago and anyway, back when people lived in caves, sheep didn't grow wool. Stop eating sweets and start drying up."
I waved an empty gin bottle at her.

"You really expect me to believe prehistoric sheep were bald? What exactly do you think happened - once upon a time, in a country far, far away, the first woolly lamb was born?" 

My companion passed me a wet plate.

"Pretty much, yes. The country was Mesopotamia and the time was about 6,000 years ago, which may not be perfectly exact, but archaeologists don’t dig up many woolly jumpers for carbon dating. Judging by fragments that have survived, and ancient statues, bones, pictures and carvings in stone, it seems likely that farmers have been keeping sheep and goats for at least 10,000 years, only, 10,000 years ago, sheep had coats made up of mixed hairs, more like goats.  Some of those ancient, wool-free types still exist, you know. All year round, Ovis Musimon looks much like a sheep that has just been very neatly shorn."

By Doronenko - Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4322847

"I can think of some farmers round here who'd like a flock of Ovis Musimon. That would save them the trouble of shearing, having wool sacks stuffing up the barn until the Wool Marketing Board collect them and then waiting months to be paid about £2 a fleece."
My companion brandished a well scrubbed baking tray, sprinkling me with soapy water.

"And what would happen to those poor sheep out on the mountain? A fleece offers a considerable survival advantage at night, at altitude and in winter." My companion sighed. "I can't deny that today, the financial value of wool has plummeted, but prehistoric people in Mesopotamia had the sense to realise how incredibly important that first woolly lamb was to their survival, as well as their sheep." She paused to smooth a stray lock back from her face and twirled it round her hoof. "People have been spinning for at least 26,000 years. Long before wool existed, plant fibres were being twisted together to make cord and spun into thread for weaving cloth. Six thousand years ago, somebody in Mesopotamia – probably a woman who knew all about spinning plant fibres – looked at the wool that was shed by those odd, fuzzy sheep and thought to herself, I could spin that."

"Wouldn't she have had to shear the fleece?"

"Most unlikely. Older breeds of sheep alive today still grow a mixture of wool and hair, and they moult to shed their fleece in summer.  You know about ‘the rise’ - even modern breeds get a weakening of growth in their locks during late May or June. A wise farmer only rings to book the shearers when she sees the rise on her flock, because it's so much quicker and easier to clip than trying to chop through the strong growth from winter."

I nodded. I've seen the rise myself and the thinning within the fleece is quite dramatic. In early summer, modern breeds of sheep in Wales wander about with bare patches, where clumps of their wool have got caught on brambles and broken off at the rise.

"So, you're saying, back in Mesopotamia, the first woolly sheep probably moulted all their wool in summer and some clever woman picked it up from the pastures and decided to try spinning the fibres on her spindle?"

"Seems plausible to me, Beaut. You've tried spinning flax into linen thread, didn't go well, did it? I imagine our skilled, prehistoric plant spinner would have found wool was much easier."

As I polished a bundle of damp cutlery, I gave this idea a bit of thought. 

Locks of Wool and Fibres from Nettle Stems

The surface of wool is covered with tiny scales that interlock closely when you twist the fibres - they hold together instead of slithering apart. Unlike smooth, straight plant fibres, locks of wool are wiggly, they have ‘crimp’. The crimp in wool puffs up again after spinning, giving it body. Tiny spaces in between the wiggly, twisted wool fibres trap air, making the yarn lightweight, insulating and stretchy. It’s not a lot of good having rope or sewing thread that is bulky and elastic, but it’s much more comfortable to wear socks and jumpers with a bit of give in them, much warmer to wear clothes that hug your body and still let you move freely. 

By the time all the knives and forks were put back in the drawer, I was feeling quite excited. 
"Just think how pleased that Mesopotamian woman must have been when she realised how quickly she could spin wool compared to plant fibres and what potential her wool yarn had for making a different kind of fabric."

"Wool would have been Prehistoric high tech. Super new wool survival suits for the mountaineer. Next millenium's 'must have' tribal fashion. The ancient Mesopotamians went on to breed their wooliest sheep together and developed bigger and better flocks."

"So, how and when did wool bearing sheep get to Wales?"

Elinor pulled out the plug and watched the water drain away.
"Woolly sheep probably arrived here with Bronze Age immigrants about 4,000 years ago. But their journey is an epic tale for another time. A time when this house is tidy. Get the hoover out, Beaut."

A Welsh Mule Fleece for Britspin

My companion, Elinor Gotland, looked up in surprise when she heard the car turn into the drive.
"That was quick. I thought you'd be bound to get lost on the mountain."

"Well, I nearly was. When the thing on my phone told me I had 'reached my destination', I just stopped in the middle of the lane to climb up for a look over the hedge and as luck would have it, the farmer came past in a four by four and told me where to find the track to the house."
Elinor looked at the mud splattered car.
"Rough going was it?"
"Not as rough as the fleeces." I shut the boot and carried a large bag into the garden. "When somebody is kind enough to ring up after shearing and offer me a gift, I know it would be too rude to say no, but going through that wool sack this morning was an odoriferous experience. Beautiful views from the shed, though."
"Let's have a look at what you picked, then."
I unrolled a coloured Welsh Mule sheep fleece onto the lawn.

"I wondered about choosing a fleece that was practically cotted solid, to try making a rug, but then, right at the bottom of the sack, I found this. There's not much debris in it and I do like the colour. Thought I might use it to make a new handbag."
"Ooo, you're so ungrateful. This is a lovely open fleece. See how it stretches into windows." Elinor pulled out a lock and twanged it. "No breaks in the staple, fine fibres, tight crimp and maybe even a bit of a lustre. I'd say this ewe inherited some great Blue Faced Leicester qualities from her dad."
I circled the fleece, pulling off the shorter, rougher locks from round the edges.
"That's a brutal skirting you're giving that fleece, Beaut. It's not so long ago you thought every lock was precious. How times have changed."
"I might just spin it in the grease, make some rustic, chunky yarn."
My companion put down her hoof.
"Now that attitude is one thing that ought to change. This is a nice fleece and you are going to do it justice and prepare it properly. It can be your Britspin project."

First, the fleece was divided into three portions, put into three large net bags and soaked for 24 hours in the suint vat. Under the watchful eye of my companion, the dirty water was spun out in the spin dryer and each bag was soaked for ten minutes in a bucket of hot soapy water and given three hot rinses.

"There, now that didn't take too long, did it?" It wasn't the washing that took the time so much as fluffing up all the locks while laying them out to dry.

"If you tweak all the tips to open the locks while they're damp, it'll be much quicker when you come to put them through the drum carder. Hurry up now, this weather is so hot the wool will be dry in no time."
I was inwardly cursing Elinor long before I'd finished, though the cloud of washed wool did have some pretty shades of grey.

No sooner had the fleece dried than my companion was hauling out the David Barnett drum carder.
"It's weeks to go til Britspin begins and I'm not sure I want to spin from batts. Anyway, I prefer doing the prep as I go along."
"Britspin is a spinning competition all about yardage. I can't have you letting the team down, spinning at a snail's pace and stopping every whipstitch to make more rolags. This is a marvellous fleece munching machine and you've barely used it since you bought it. Get on with it, card one batt every day and they'll soon pile up."
So I teased out locks, laid them out on Diligent Dave's intray and turned his handle over and over again.

For a while, it was quite interesting watching the wiggly fibres get caught by the little teeth and stretched out over the drum, and rather satisfying to peel off another puffy batt.
Then it got dull.
"I might be going off grey, after all, now, Elinor."
"Put some of the fleece in your next indigo vat. You were only saying lately how well the blue overdyes grey."

"Ooo, good plan."
"Yes, and you can put some silk in the vat too, ready for blending with the second carding."
"What? Since when was I carding this lot twice?"
"Since we decided you would do this properly."
I'm not sure how democratic that decision was, but I made a start, tearing the softest batts into strips, thinning them out and feeding them back onto Dave the Drum Carder. Adding little strips of loose silk fibres didn't go well. The straight, smooth fibres seemed to become more clumped up than blended.
"Put them underneath the wool in the tray, you numpty. That way they get pressed onto the teeth on the big drum." 

By Wednesday night, I had blended six batts of the best wool with silk and four of the roughest, shortest fibred batts with some ramie, to increase strength. The rest had only been carded once, but too late to fuss, Britspin was about to begin. Yesterday was Day One and by midnight, I had spun and plied all the silk blended batts and wound the yarn into skeins.

My companion looked impressed.
"You've spun about quarter of those batts already. Well done, you might even manage the whole fleece by Sunday night. What length did you manage?"
"I39.1metres."
"Is that all? Let me see the yarn."
"It's 2 ply, so I can multiply that length by two and actually, by three, to have credit for the plying."

"Just look at this big fat yarn! No wonder you spun so much of the wool. How much does it weigh?"
"About 150g. All that work doing the prep, can't believe the entire fleece is only going to be about 500g."
"You should have spun it fingering weight and longdraw, Beaut. What ever were you thinking?" Elinor rolled her eyes. "Bet the girls won't be too thrilled with your performance."

"I haven't seen you spinning any vast mileage. What's your contribution to the glory of Team Wriggly's Twisterellas going to be?"
"I shall be taking part in the photo competition."
"'Spinning in an Unusual Place'? Are you flying off to some exotic location for a photo shoot?"
Elinor settled herself more comfortably into her armchair.
"I think I shall be entering a picture for the 'Individual Spinner Relaxing' category."

Wednesday 17 October - Results 

Here's the finished fleece

Elinor looks as if she's lost a shilling and found sixpence...

Hand Spinning Speckled Face Beulah Sheep Fleece

My companion, Elinor Gotland, caught me sighing over old photos of my friend Mary’s Speckled Face Beulah sheep.

"You're going to miss those Beulahs, Beaut."

“I am, and Mary, too."

"She's gone to a better place."
I bridled at that.

"It may be less rainy in France, but I wouldn't say it was better."

"You think sunshine and grape vines are less appealing than sodden fields and foot rot?"

"Even so, it must have been a real wrench to sell the flock after all these years. Don't they look lovely?"

“Fair play, the Beulahs are photogenic.”

I took this picture the January Mary first invited me to Ty Cribbwr Farm. Which is pronounced ‘Tee Cribboor’ - you’ll have to make what you can of Welsh place names when I tell you that for over a hundred years, Speckled Face Beulah sheep have been pure bred on the hills of Eppynt, Llanafan, Abergwesyn and Llanwrtyd Wells. Less hardy than the true Welsh Mountain sheep, which may spend all their lives out on high ground, Beulahs are bigger and comparatively manageable. Importantly for the farmer, they are excellent mothers. That day, the vet had come to scan Mary’s ewes. Many were carrying twins or triplets and though it pained me to mark their fleeces, my job was to paint spots on their backs to show which ones were going to need extra feed during pregnancy. 

Mary’s flock started when she was given a Beulah ram lamb triplet to bring on, because his mother couldn’t manage to feed three. He was nicknamed Boots, seeing as his legs were black to the knee and white above. The next year, she bought him a harem of ten Beulah ewes and by the time I met her, the flock had grown to more than a hundred sheep.

I did love lambing.
"There's a deep satisfaction, watching wet, new born lambs struggle to their hooves for the first time."

"And a hell of a struggle delivering the ones that get stuck at three in the morning. Alright for you, you only did the day shifts. It's all that free wool you'll really miss, Beaut."

True enough, waiting til summer for the shearing was a perfect agony of anticipation. The clippers buzzed, sweat beaded and bald ewes bounded away.  Beetling about, rather frenzied myself, skirting and wrapping the fresh fleeces, I had golden opportunities to compare and contrast fibres from several local breeds living on the farm. All Down types, the Beulah felt far, far less bristly than Welsh Mountain, though a Lleyn fleece just edged it as the softest wool in the pile. After skirting, the quality of wool and staple length across each whole fleece varied only modestly from an average of medium soft locks, about 10cm long, coarser and straighter over the breech.  Elsewhere, the crimp was tight, but disorganised, with a low lanolin content.  Not only resistant to felting in the wash, the clean locks were a pleasure to comb for spinning worsted and even the raw wool was light work to hand card for long draw spinning, which is my preferred method.

“I do love it when you can just get straight into a freshly shorn fleece and spin away with hardly any waste, Elinor. In my opinion, Beulah would be an ideal choice for a beginner. I had no trouble with any of the preparation and the fibres are good and grabby to spin.”

“No trouble with preparation? You rarely did any and you’re fooling no-one, you Slack Alice."

Last year was grievous, a spell of flooding kept the ewes on limited grazing for several weeks, which caused a weak point in the staple. This summer's shearling fleeces were excellent quality, I have just finished spinning one for the Tour de Fleece and am torn whether to snaffle just one more, before the woolsack goes to the Wool Board.

I did do proper sampling and studying, a few years ago when I brought home my first Beulah fleece. The wool was easy to manage and straightforward to spin, from high twist, worsted fingering weight to low twist, woollen chunky.  Pale cream rather than bright white, all types of yarn were much softer than I anticipated, being accustomed to Welsh hill breeds, which are best suited to making bags and rugs. As you would expect, given more time and effort, combed worsted yarn came out slicker and smoother, knitting up with a bit of a gleam and more drape. Minimal kemp meant no itchy ends were exposed by simply hand carding rolags from the whole locks and Beulah seemed at its best as a woollen yarn, full, bouncy and elastic, knitting up into a thoroughly cuddly fabric.

"Maybe Mary will wear that Beulah jumper I knitted, if it gets cool in the evenings, sitting on her French veranda. Maybe the meadowsweet dye will remind her of her damp Welsh valley."

Elinor looked at me.

"Meadowsweet loves it wet, but face it, Beaut, Mary doesn't."

Hand Spinning Border Leicester Sheep Fleece.

"It's Wovember already and I haven't got a fraction of my Border Leicester fleece washed.  I meant it to be all prepared for a lovely month of spinning and celebrating wool along with the Wovember crowd."
My companion, Elinor Gotland, leant over to see the gauge sample I was knitting.
"How come that bit's got even fewer stitches per 10cm?"
"Well, I thought the fabric felt a bit flimsy for a jacket, so I spun thicker yarn as well as dropping down a needle size."
She looked at me and sighed.
"Another sample spin gone wrong.  Good job it was such a big fleece."

All in all, the Wovember plan was running way behind schedule.  It started so well. I opened my parcelled up Border Leicester lamb fleece from the Doulton Flock to find it had arrived together with prize winning credentials.  Laid out on the lawn, I could only imagine how one sheep managed to stagger about under the weight of so much wool. The locks were a good 15-20cm long with that nice crimp that doesn't turn into corkscrew curls and an enticing lustre gleaming through the dirt. I scurried round it, finding little need to skirt any manky edges off and not much vegetation to pick out. Though the quality did vary from the shoulders to the britch, all of the wool looked like a joy to spin.

Determined to wash it well without disrupting the lock structure, I sewed a long net curtain into six drawstring bags and laid parallel rows of individual locks inside each one, before rolling them loosely and leaving to soak.  After the cold soak, each bag full had ten minutes in a bucket of hot detergent, a pause to drain and spin, then three hot rinses and spin again, just like the experts say. The method did work fine, when I lifted the locks out of the bags to dry, there was no felting and no grease left, just a bit of dirt on the tips and some natural discoloration, which hardly mattered, seeing as I mean to dye the yarn anyway.

At that point, there was plenty of time in hand to prepare some samples using different techniques and see how the wool spun. Combing first. Seemed I had been all too effective cleaning out the lanolin, each stroke of the comb produced a 15cm ball of electric fibre fuzz, determined to loop over on itself and catch back into the tines, despite spraying with water and even adding back oil - which always seems daft to me.  I persevered, drafting it out into tops off the combs and rolling that to store as nests. At the wheel, using short forward draw, the long fibres seemed to spin finely, all by themselves.

The impressive staple length also made rolags a bit of a challenge to card, though much less electric than the combs.  I do love spinning longdraw, well, my version of it. I still haven't mustered the nerve for that chewing gum stretch just before you let the single run onto the bobbin. I did try flicking out the butts and tips and feeding some fleece into the drum carder - big mistake, the long staple made it hell to separate a dividing line to pull the batt off the drum and the process seemed to create neps in locks that had looked fine beforehand. No point spinning that, I put it away for felting.  Taking a dog brush simply to open up the tips and butts, I really enjoyed spinning a handful of locks from the fold, keeping my finger at right angles to the yarn for a semi worsted result, just like Jacey Boggs showed in her Worsted to Woolen video class.

Elinor found me examining my three Border Leicester yarns and the three swatches I had knitted from them.
"The combed worsted is the best.  Lovely lustre and it will give some drape to that jacket you're so keen to knit."
"I don't want it to hang round my knees. And the nests of roving don't lend themselves to spinning at double knitting weight."
"Make woolen yarn, then." She stretched the knitted sample. "Fullbodied and warm with more elasticity. That'll keep your jacket in shape."
"Woolen yarn pills.  I want to be wearing this jacket for at least a couple of years."
"So spin fine singles from combed nests and make three ply."
I couldn't suppress a groan.  She rounded on me.  "I don't know why you bother pretending.  It's obvious you can't really be bothered with a proper combed preparation.  You just want to tart about grabbing locks and spinning that lumpy stuff from the fold."
"Once it's knitted up, I think irregularities in the yarn will add character."
"Character?  What, like the old fortune teller at the fair or the nutter on the bus?"
"It's Border Leicester, rare, British and special.  It has character. I don't want to look like I bought a 'wool' jacket at the shops. I'm thinking #woolworks "
"Hah, you wouldn't know what to do with a hashtag if it bit you on the ankle."

It is never comfortable to be in Elinor Gotland's bad books.
"Did you see that the Wovember 2016 theme is The Politics of Wool? I'm going to write on my blog how wrong it is that manufacturers can call clothes wool, when really they are mostly made of synthetics. They wouldn't get away with that kind of misleading label in the food industry."
"How much pork do you think there is in the average pork sausage, Beaut? Or horsemeat in a beef lasagne?"

"Well, it's still wrong and I'm going to say so. Look -  #wovember2016 "
"Preaching to the choir, Beaut. Anybody who reads to the end of a blog about a rare breed sheep fleece already cares quite as much about wool as you do. Get out there and #bethechangeforwool "
So she volunteered me to spin and talk at the kids' old school.

Manx Loaghtan Handspun Wool Cushion

My first visit to Wonderwool Wales in 2013 proved to be a weekend of the highest excitement.  New to spinning, it was there that I began wading through the shallows toward the depths of my ignorance.  I shudder, now, to think how I used to refer to all yarn, from alpaca to acrylic, as 'wool'.  Staggering towards the exit on Sunday afternoon, a trader packing up raw fleece offered me half price on her remaining Manx Loaghtan. Since these rare breed sheep are small and primitive, their fleeces only weigh a couple of kilos.  A big, strong girl like me could surely manage to carry home one more bag. The deal was done, what a bargain, beautiful, unusual, gingery brown wool.
Off to my first spinning camp a couple of months later, I didn't want to put anything coarse or crappy on the swop table, so I left the Welsh Mountain fleeces at home and steeled myself to offer up half my washed Manx Loaghtan.  Couldn't understand why it was still there at the end of the camp.  Mystifying.

Put away against the day when I became a better spinner, it was a pleasant surprise to rediscover the other half of the fleece, still in a pillow case in the loft.  Looking at things positively, I have definitely become a better judge of fleece than I was back then.  

Manx Loaghtan locks typically have a widely varied staple length. This one also had a break in the staple, about 2cm up. Matted, felted areas were probably not all due to my washing technique, as they were worst on the chest and shoulder. Oh cringe, no wonder no-one had wanted the other half from the swop table.

"Take it straight to the compost heap, Beaut.  That's what I'd do."
My companion, Elinor Gotland, is a ewe of ruthless purpose.  I hugged the full pillow case to my chest.
"But I spent ages washing this fleece."
"Cut your losses and spin something worth spending time on.  That's real wisdom, knowing when to stop."  
Some lessons I have yet to take to heart.
"Look at the pretty colour, though, feel how soft the fibre is."  I passed Elinor one of the nicer locks.  "Like cafe au lait, pale and frothy on the top."  I sat down at the wheel and started drafting out a thick single, straight from the fleece.  "I just want to try spinning Manx Loaghtan, it's such an ancient breed, saved from extinction on the Isle of Man. Even the ewes have those curious horns and long legs.  The breeders' website says they are remarkably athletic sheep.  'Good quality stock fencing not less than 1.1m high is essential.'"  Elinor snorted.
"Minx could have hurdled that, no trouble at all."
"Minx?"
"A wild Loaghtan I met in Paris, danced the cancan in a cabaret, marvellous at high kicks.  So talented, such a shame - she's another one who never learned when to stop." 
"How's that?"
"One night, she tossed her head and went one grande battement too far - got her horns caught in the chandelier and brought the house down.  Literally."

It didn't take long to spin up half that small fleece and Navajo ply a lumpy yarn.  Without any combing or carding, the pale tips of the locks remained intact, stippling the brindled brown.  There was enough wool to knit up into a stocking stitch cushion which matches the sofa rather well. Manx Loaghtan fibre is uncommonly fine, not what you'd imagine from a so-called primitive breed.  When the time comes to stop and sit down, we now have a very comfy cushion.