Cleaning and Processing Sheep Fleece for Spinning Commission

My latest commission is an interesting and lovely one, though not the usual textile artwork that is normal for me. However, it is very much related as we'll explore later in the blog.

I'm processing a special sheep fleece and spinning it for a lovely client. The process of this has begun though there's still some work left. There are many different ways to prepare a sheep fleece, clean it and process it for spinning and this blog is about how I do this. The first stage is to take the whole fleece (as shown above), open it out and skirt it - that is taking out the vegetable matter, plants, dirt and any sections of the fleece that won't spin well. This fleece is so lovely it didn't loose much during this stage.

Next is to do the first stage of washing or scouring the fleece. I break the fleece into smaller sections and place these into mesh laundry bags. The bags keep the fleece together and help me to remove it more easily from the large wash buckets. I leave the fleece to soak for around half an hour in a mix of wool detergent and hot water.

This is the water after the fleece has washed for the first time.

The fleece is the placed in a bucket of rinsing water to help remove the detergent. I then spin it in a drying spinner. This process is repeated at least twice. If the fleece is still dirty or feels like there's too much lanolin in it then I'll repeat a third time.

This fleece was so clean it took just two wash and rinse cycles.

I then take the fleece out of the mesh bags and leave it to dry.

This is the fleece after the first wash and rinse cycle

Here's the fleece after the second wash and rinse cycle, so much cleaner.

The next stage for this fleece is to card it, which is a type of combing the fleece to remove the last small pieces of debris and to align the fibres making it easier to spin. I'll then move on to spinning the fleece for my client to be able to weave with it. Look out for future blog posts about these stages.

Although I don't often do this type of commission (though I'm always open to more) it is related to my arts practice. I spin and weave and this does feature in some of my artworks. My aim for this year is to make a piece of woven and embroidered artwork that I have had a hand in making all elements of

• taking a sheep fleece, cleaning and preparing it as I've done here

• spinning the fleece into yarn

• naturally dyeing the yarn

• weaving the yarn into fabric

• embroidering the fabric to create a piece of artwork.

This is very much an artwork in progress; I'm currently working on both the spinning of this and the design stages. It's so exciting to be able to say I'm making the whole thing rather than buying fabrics or other materials to work on.

I'd love to hear if you've ever prepared a sheep fleece, let me know in the comments below.