Fibre Prep: Herdwick

The Fleece

This fleece was an unexpected acquisition to my stash. I sent a fellow crafter a scanned copy of a vintage sewing machine manual, we got chatting about crafts and it turned out they kept Herwick sheep and wanted to send me some wool as a thank you, so a while later I received a fleece sized package in the post! It’s taken me a while to get round to working with it, so Herdy Lodge if you’re reading this, I hope I’m doing your fleece justice! Herdwick sheep come in varied shades and this one was a beautiful oatmeal with a grey and white overcoat. It wasn’t overly greasy and was fairly free of large VM so didn’t need much skirting before washing.

Washing

I used the suint bath which brought it up well, however I washed this in late summer and the weather turned very wet, so I had to forgo a rinse in fresh rainwater in the interests of getting it dry for storage over winter. I was a little worried that the fleece might retain more of the suint smell when I began working with it; there was a smell slightly different to just sheep, but it wasn’t overpowering or particularly unpleasant and has gone completely after washing to set the twist.

Picking & Carding

Even after washing there’s always a lot of dust, so in the interests of opening up the fibres I decided to put the fleece through the wool picker. I had also decided that I wanted to spin the fibre loosely from a batt and passing it through the wool picker would make it easier to put on the drum carder.

When I began drum carding I found the fibres were getting tangled around the licker brush. I wasn’t holding them back, so turned to the internet and discovered some people had this problem with fine fibres like alpaca and angora, but Herdwick is naturally coarser, so I examined my fleece again. When I looked closely at the undercoat I noticed that the fibres were actually finer than I had thought, an optical illusion caused by the overcoat. Since my drum carder is a standard 72tpi I followed the online advice the slow down my carding speed and this worked well, with the licker brush taking on only nepps and short cuts (which I cleaned off regularly). I began with doing two passes on the drum carder, but there didn’t seem to be much difference between one or two passes and since I was going to be spinning this very loose, I opted for only one pass through the drum carder. The resulting batts were light and fluffy and a significant amount of VM and dust was still dropping out at the bottom of the carder.

As always, let me know if you have any tips/advice in the comments below!

Happy Crafting!

Further Reading about Herdwick:

• Breed Society Website – https://www.herdwick-sheep.com/
• British Sheep & Wool by the British Wool Marketing Board – ISBN 9780904969108
• The Field Guide to Fleece by Deborah Robson & Carol Ekarius – ISBN 9781612121789
• The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook by Deborah Robson & Carol Ekarius – ISBN 9781603427111