Preparing Greyt's fiber

After shearing, the next step is skirting. I have a wonderful skirting table that J made for me. It's in our basement, in the storage/furnace area. Skirting means to remove the debris, the hay, sticks and anything else that got caught in the fiber. After skirting, I like to weigh the fiber out into 4 ounce lots. I find if I weigh it before spinning it, I can get two strands almost the same length, to ply into yarn. It's a big pain when one strand is significantly longer than the other. So far, weighing ahead of time has helped get this pretty close.

I wash two of the 4 ounce lots, so that I can spin up two strands to ply into yarn. After the fiber is washed, I dry the fleece on my skirting table. Here is some of Greyt's fiber, laying to dry:



I wash it in the kitchen sink in a mesh bag (the mesh bag is laying between to two 4 ounce lots), then dry, with a fan running under the table. I've found this is enough to help dry it faster, but not so much commotion that it sprays the fiber all over the place.



I washed Greyt's fiber up last weekend, knowing I was near done spinning the ball of Victoria yarn. It takes a few days to dry, even with the fan running below the table.

My amazing husband started flicking the fiber for me. Here it is raw:



And flicked:



I admit it, he does a better job flicking than I do. I think he has more patience with it. I just want to spin it, I rush through flicking.