Over the past few months, I decided to plunge into processing fleece from scratch. Overall, I really enjoy it. Most of the fleeces I purchased have very little VM and are absolutely beautiful.

There is one that has quite a bit of VM, and is very greasy. That has not been as enjoyable, but the fleece itself is a very fine fawn and gray Shetland, so I think the final yarn will be amazing.

In order to process a lot of the solid/semi-solid colored fleece, I decided I wanted to invest in a drum carder. I ended up going with a medium-sized 96 TPI drum carder from a seller on Etsy. It was far less expensive than the “name brand” drum carders I’d seen, but had great reviews and so far it has been working well 🤞🏻 I definitely have to watch how much fleece I try to load on at once, and it is going to need some serious cleaning after this particularly dirty fleece.

In order to minimize the amount of VM going into my drum carder, I am doing a lot of hand picking – splitting the fleece apart over and over to shake loose the VM. But, there is a loooot, so there’s definitely still more than I would like getting on the carder.

I went with the 96 TPI after shooting Jen from Whispering Pines Farm an email to ask for her advice. The drum carder came in 72 and 96, and knowing I had two of her fleeces I wanted to process and treat gently, I asked for her TPI recommendation. She said the 96 would be a good option given I had both her fine fleeces, but also a few more primitive fleeces (a moorit Shetland and Hebridean).

At the moment, I have six(!) fleeces to process (and luckily I have a plan for all of them).

I have two fine Shetland fleeces from Whispering Pines Farm. I choose two black fleeces because I wanted to compare the color to a Hebridean fleece (which I found on Etsy from a U.K. seller with many breeds). One day, I would like to have a small flock, and I looooove Hebridean sheep and their fleece color. But, as far as I can tell, you cannot get them as livestock in the U.S. (and you cannot import livestock from the U.K. into the U.S.). So, I wanted to see how the black Shetland color compared. Now after seeing all three fleeces in person, I think a black primitive Shetland or Icelandic would be a much better fleece to compare to the Hebridean, so that will probably be next once I get through some of these.

Next, I have a moorit Shetland that falls in between very primitive and fine. It is not dual coated, but it is much closer to the Hebridean in texture and staple length. This fleece came from Ewereka Farm and is absolutely beautiful. It’s so clean, an amazing color, and I can’t wait to work on it.

I also have the fawn/gray Shetland fleece from a different Etsy seller, which I have mixed feelings about. Like I said before, the color and crimp is amazing, but it is very dirty and greasy (actually, so far I have found all the fine Shetland fleeces to be wayyy greasier). So, if you don’t mind a lot of VM, these might be good fleeces for you.

Lastly, I have an absolutely beautiful Jacob fleece. This was one of the more expensive fleeces, but it is huge and full of amazing shades. I plan to process this one differently from the rest – hand flick the locks and spin them for a marled yarn.

All-in-all, I’ve been really enjoying this new adventure and now that everything is washed, I’m looking forward to processing everything over the winter while stuck inside.