I am on year 3 combing my bags of local fleece! I was spinning on a drop spindle in the park today when an Iranian man approached me. He said he had seen the rural people doing it but never got a chance to ask about it. He found it all very interesting. I apprrciated the chance to teach about this ancient craft.
The environmental issues are nuanced and I suspect it may be very different for you in NZ compared to us in Australia. Regenerative ruminant agriculture is very much a thing and can help to turn poor land into land that does start to sequester carbon and which holds water, instead of the water eroding it and any plants just dying of thirst. For us in Australia that's something we really can work on, there are large parts of Australia that are simply unsuited for forestry but which can carry sheep. That doesn't excuse the irresponsible way in which native forest has been and continues to be felled in Australia. Forests can also be a bit of a two edged sword here in Australia, they burn and while *_controlled_* burns can be used to bring about a nett reduction in carbon dioxide production, bushfires are big nett contributors to CO2 production . There is also the issue in Australia that getting sheep meats from the paddock to the consumer's plate is one of the most efficient in terms of water usage compared to a lot of other foodstuffs, which is a big consideration for us. Your climate and your soils are very different to ours, which may well make the environmental considerations very different.
@@resourcedragon that's fascinating - and extremely different from the issues we're facing in NZ. We have fewer problems with fire (although there has definitely been an uptick in fire recently, its nothing in comparison with Australia) and I don't believe we have any major water-table issues. Usually, land that has been used for sheep farming can grow trees immediately, and we don't have to worry about lowering the water-table first. There are also a number of protections around felling native timber - most of the native trees that are prized for their timber are now protected, as they were massively over-felled in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (e.g. mature rimu and kauri are both protected and can not be felled for timber generally speaking). Most of the forestry in NZ that I'm familiar with are exotic pine forests planted on what was once pasture land (that was formally native forest converted to pasture, see note on historic over-felling) - which has it's problems, don't get me wrong. However, because the NZ economy relies so heavily on agriculture - in particular meat and milk - our main carbon emissions as a country are actually produced by livestock. Basically, sheep and cows burp greenhouse gasses - including methane -and this accounts for about 50% of NZ net carbon emissions. In comparison, forestry is often a carbon sink, at least while the trees are growing. Obviously, if existing native forests are felled, that's very bad - but as sheep don't graze in forested areas, any crossover from sheep farming to forestry is unlikely to affect areas that were already in native forest. Hence my note earlier - I know a similar switch wouldn't necessarily a positive thing for carbon emissions everywhere, but I believe that in NZ at least, a move away from heavy reliance on sheep farming is probably a positive move with specific regard to carbon emissions (providing they aren't replaced with cattle or other methane burping livestock, of course).
That Blue Texel fleece and the yarn look fabulous! This lady is going to be very happy with the skeins you have spun. She offered the fleeces for free and gets back some luxurious, exclusive yarn to knit her heart out with. I’d say this is a very fair trade for both of you. I’m secretly hoping she’ll keep in touch and sends you a picture of what she knits with your yarn from her sheep. By the way, I absolutely loved the ‘basically lawn mowers with a heartbeat’. So accurate!
I should not have watched this. There is local wool available in my area. $25 for a 55gal trash bag of wool. I do not need to know this. I do not have the tools to process wool. I have never done it before. But gosh do I want to now.
All I can say is… welcome to the dark side… why don’t you step in…? All joking aside, if you’re a spinner, this is tempting indeed. I personally decided to go ‘low impact - low labour’ and got myself the fleece of an alpaca. No souring needed. Just yesterday I spied an alpaca fleece for free on a second hand website. I was so tempted… but alas, no more room to store it and I’m still working myself through my stash of spinnable fibre to make room for new… and I need to keep some room available, because my daughter has a few friends who’ll soon be shearing lambs. I’ve already checked what I need: several large buckets, some soap (hand soap or dish soap), a drying rack, hand cards/dog brushes (for lack of a drum carder), my spinning wheel and time. I’ve been gifted wool combs should I wish to comb instead of carding. I’m all set. 😊
Unfortunately my partner has put their foot down on the wool situation and I can't really fight them on it because we have a very small house. One day I will be able to make room for some raw fleece, but not this year.
Yes! I totally agree, it's so important to value our local wool! I was so lucky too this year, a friend of mine randomly talked to a owner of three sheep and they arranged to get me the wool 😍And my own grandpa owns sheep, my brother made sure to set me aside two fleeces! I'm so grateful to have sooo much raw wool to spin now. I'm not sure yet, what I'm gonna make for the owners, but I'm sure I'll figure it out. I'm from germany btw ^^ And very inspired by you, I love every single video you make! You just make my days brighter 💛
I love the color! I adore grey fleeces. I'm sure the sheep owner will love getting some yarn from her sheep. Where I'm located, mills for processing small batches of wool into roving are scarce, and ones that will also spin that into yarn are even more rare. And mills are closing as people retire. A couple of friends recently opened a mill to clean and process fiber in to roving. They've had some customers bring in 10+ year old wool that's been stacking up because the customer didn't know where to bring it for processing.
Fleece prices in canadian dollars: compost worthy filth, $5 or free if you pick up. Good ordinary fleece sheared by a pro and kept reasonably clean, $250, skirted. High quality fleece from a babied sheep wearing a coat all year, shipped from minnesota, $600. Worth it too. 30g of dyed corriedale roving from new zealand is $7 at the wool shop. Those malabrigo merinos from argentina are 100g and cost $40-50 depending on the shop. So that gives a good breakdown for here. As you see, prices vary wildly and farmers often have no idea what to ask. If its a farmer who just hacked it off and shoved it in a bag but the sheep.were kept clean, pay up to $100cad. If properly sheared and skirted but nothing special, offet over $100 and keep in mind he paid a pro shearer to do the job. Shearers for yarn wool are a dying profession and we need to support them or we will not have decent fleeces.
I love your video, your approach and all the way you see the world : my neighbour gave me two fleeces (he wanted to give me the twelve fleeces of all his sheep, but I only choose a brown and a white… it’s a first attempt for me, and a lot of raw wool to process) It is one of the most beautiful present someone gave me, and he didn’t understand why because he is used to throw the wool away because nobody is interested in it….i gave him in exchange a good bottle of wine and propose him to try to prove him that his wool and some value and beauty inside 😊 I’ve already washed and spun a small amount, just to try, and it’s SO different and interesting compared to merinos ;) I m looking forward to continue and I hope I will have soon some sunny days to sort, wash and card…since fours weeks, it’s raining every day in France…my plan is to prepare all this wool to spin it for the « tour de fleece » or for the fall. I agree with you: handspun yarn is too expensive to be sell…and it’s difficult to estimate the right price for a local fleece : but what’s priceless is to bring into this world made of money and materialism the little seed of the beauty and the magic of what a human hand can make: just pure alchemy, transmutation…sun, water, grass transmuted in socks … pure magic as no price because it’s pure joy of living ❤
There are those who claim that both spindle spinning and knitting are forms of witchcraft, with the spindle being the wand in the former and the needles the wands in the latter, along with incantations like, "k1, p1, k1, yon, k2tog." I think we are in danger of losing the magic of knowing how to turn raw materials, like fleece or reeds and rushes or a hundred and one other things into useful items with our own hands.
Oh my, Jente...! that is some seriously gorgeous wool you have spun and I am absolutely positive that the owner of those Texels will be blown away by your gift as you were theirs. I've been trying desperately to get my hands on local floof but none of the sheep around me (and there are plenty, I live in the countryside) have been sheared yet.. apparently it's too cold and wet still to shear them 🤷 However not to be beaten I dragged hubby off to a (just an hour outside of being) local wool gathering a couple of weekends ago and managed to grab me a massive full longwool fleece, 2 bags full of black Hebridean and a gorgeous bag full of Shetland, all raw all gorgeous... Oooooh and 500g of Finnish. Can't wait to get stuck in only I have had to wait as I pinched a nerve in my shoulder drop spindling miles of yarn whilst bumbling about up Scotland... I just couldn't stop even though I was feeling the burn so I've rested around 2 weeks now and I'm making myself wait until this coming weekend to get back at it again. This week is the longest week of my life 😂
So awesome you get wool free if I had been know back when I was younger that I would want to spin wool this much I would have had my parents keep all of our sheep wool
Oh my goodness what a wonderful and informative video!! 😍😍 A local farmer friend was bagging up his fleeces recently and there was one left over, so I was asked if I wanted it! I only picked up the Blue Texel fleece this Tuesday and it’s rather big! Today is the first day I have had time to work out what to do with it, so I have been exploring social media for a few hours this afternoon! I am so glad I have found you, and I will head off to watch more of your videos soon, but now I have to go and walk my dog, then make my evening meal! I knit, felt and work with mixed media often with textiles, but have never spun or treated raw fleece before. This could well be leading me down a very long rabbit hole but excited to explore! Locally on the Orkney island where I live, there are several spinning wheels and carders available, either to borrow or buy, so after saying for the past two years I don’t need another hobby….I may have to eat my words…or rather spin my wool!! 😉🤣🤣
First of all I just discovered your channel today - and you are absolutely wonderful!!! No pretense, no posturing - just plain passion and love for wool and spinning and knitting! And added that you are doing something about your local wool economy!!! There is so much out in the cyber and social wool world I look forward to you making great bit waves to benefit the woolen world. Thank you.
Aye! A shoutout to the aussies and kiwis! I found a lot of the "discoloured" merino from my family farm (which used to be triple the size it is rn) is actualy a gorgeous variety of browns and almost golden colours that the buyers don't really want (thanks to our neighbours corriedale jumping into our ewes) and its so lovely to spin! I get a few fleeces each year that my dad and i skirt together and he helps me learn the shearing processes with him!
That yarn is gorrrjuss. I never complain about how terribly expensive handspun yarn is. I just feel terribly sad that I cannot afford to buy it. Then add to that the hours and the creativity put into making an item using that beautiful wool = $$$$ too much math for my brain ..... and then add to that the off the charts stress and anger management I go thru when someone asks you to make them something and then is horrified about the waiting time to make it and the price, comparing it to buying some mass manufactured nylonish item at the China store (and you are barely covering the cost of the yarn) ... that is why I only crochet, knit and sew for my absolute beloveds. I hope that looooong tirade answers your question as to whether or not those 3 skeins are a good trade for the floof - I say YES !!! YES .. a thousand times yes !! It would be lovely to see what that kind lady makes with your beautiful gift to her.
I think sh's going to make a scarf. At least she asked "is it enough for a scarf?" and I told her that it is more than enough for a scarf and that made her really happy.
My mother-in-law still has a couple of Texel lawn mowers. I hope there is a resurgence in your local wool market. I often wish for more variety in wool, I like to work with different textures and staple lengths. I manged to get a English Leicester x Dorset lamb fleece last Spring and it is now cleaned, carded, dyed, carded again, and waiting in a big box for Tour de Fleece to begin.
Your offer to spin for the owner of sheep lady is quite generous. I wouldn’t worry about it at all or feel guilty about having received the wool for free. It would probably have been thrown away otherwise. But now, as you say, the wool will be able to live and be seen by many if the lady will knit something nice out of it. It’s a win, win situation. Well done 🧶👍🏼However, spinning wool is a labour of love, there’s no way you can put an actual price on it, as you cannot put a price on knitting.Everything you do out of love is always a good thing 😊❤
That yarn is gorgeous! I'm sure the sheep's owner will be very happy to receive it. I loved this premise for the video, it was really engaging. Coincidentally, I just started the book "Vanishing Fleece: Adventures in American Wool" by Clara Parkes last night, and the book is all about each step it takes to turn a fleece into yarn in a wool industry that's rapidly changing due to market demands. I'm about a third of the way through the book and really really enjoying it! You might too.
I do buy a fleece of Blue Texel every year. I love seperating it in colors: dark, middle and light and then spin it. It is such a thrill to knit a fair isle sweater from only one sheep. Thank you for doing the maths and remind us why we should not sell our handspun yarn ;-)
Those are gorgeous skeins and I hope she loves them. I am a natural color lover as well - especially the dark grey and black ones. Your spinning is wonderful and I love your advocacy for local wool farmers. ❤❤❤
I was so glad to see someone mention the Fibershed movement, and you might find some of the articles on their website interesting from a restoring value in local fiber economy perspective (even if a lot of the specific breeders and activities are local to their area of northern California). Rebecca Burgess, the founder, has done a few interesting videos (including one on natural dyeing) but I think you'd find her book, Harvesting Color, interesting from the natural-dye-in-your-own-area perspective, and I'm looking forward to reading her Fibershed: Growing a Movement of Farmers, Fashion Activists, and Makers for a New Textile Economy. I hope that by now your ankle feels much better--tendon things can take forever to heal!
the blue texel looks sooooooo luxurious! :O by watching your channel I've really started to look more into local wool and discovered a whole new world, and there's a different kind of connection when you see the animal the wool is from :)
Loved this! If I had sheep I'd be thrilled to have something made of their wool. I have a cat but I think she'd disapprove. Now I really want to meet those sheep. They should know we love them and their lovely floof.
I hear you! The colours of that fleece are amazing, and I mean I EFFIN LOVE THE COLOURS, I'd want to go a varigated yarn and knit a blanket! I don't know why but I LOVE IT, LOVE LOVE LOVE it. And I can't spin. I have no use for it living in the tropics. But I LOVE it. I do hope they get less rare, and dang, I want to move to Belgium and help out!
Love your yarn and the sheep owner will love this kind thank you gift!!! Would love to see what she knits from it. I got a lovely llama fleece that I carded , spun and made a cardigan from. I paid $30 Canadian for the fleece! Absolutely loved the whole process. Please continue with these fibre shananigans!!!!
Absolutely beautiful fleece/yarn. I sometimes get free fleece and sometimes buy some. @$80 US for a fleece depending on breed. Also you have a specialty skill which is why it is too hard to charge for what we do. I only take occasional custom orders anymore and am really doing it because I have a love for what I do which is also why my son encouraged me to start my channel. I recently was gifted 4 spinning wheels, totes and totes of Fiber and fleeces and tools and soooo much and the woman asked me to make her something colorful. I said, I can do that 😁
I did do sweaters worth for some who gifted me a beautiful fleece and his wife was an incredible knitter who knitted the most amazing sweaters she was also going blind ( now fully blind) and I felt she deserved that much wool yarn
I'm litereally squeeling as you take the wool out of the bag; Blue Texel is my favourite wool and it makes me so ridiculously happy! If I ever manage to move to the little farmhouse of my dreams, a Blue Texel is definitely one of the sheep breeds I want for my spinner's flock (which would, of course, consist entirely of different local sheep breeds).
Just want to submit my sincere appreciation for the absolute beauty of that blue texel wool. That end result is just superb. 🇦🇺🎸⚡️🤘🏾🤘🏼💋💜 would love to crochet with that
It is beautiful indeed, after tour de fleece is done (because I have long standing different plans for that) I'm going to dive right into the Blue Texel again
I usually comb and or flick my locks before I put them in my manual drum carder. I do multiple passes too. I do one pass with each batt; and divide the batts in half. Put them in two piles; put first 1/2 at to bottom of the opposite pile. Take a half from each pile and repeat this at least 2 times. This will give you very consistent fibre to spin in to what ever you want. Your Blue Texel yarn is screaming a cabled sweater to me.
I think you would take interest in the Fibershed project, which aims to help develop regional fiber economies. Fibershed Chesapeake was at Maryland sheep and wool this year and is my local branch, but I believe they have a branch in Belgium and one in the NL.
Could you demo how you care for/launder your wool items? I’ve seen several other channels answer the same question, but it’s interesting to see the similarities and differences, especially across cultures and those with larger and smaller interior spaces.
OMG, saw my first Blue Texel sheep yesterday! I am in love! I have to wait though, they are super expensive over here, Hopefully the price will come down as they become more accessable.
Hi Jente, I hope you're OK xx ❣️❣️❣️❣️ Thankyou so much for sharing this video podcast. I love the colours of the Blue Texel Fleece. Your Batts look so squishy and thefinishes Handspun Yarns look amazing. 🎡🧶✨️🌟 I'm sure thar the Lady Farmer will love your Handspun Yarns and she'll make something beautiful with it.✨️🌟🌟 I remember you doing a "Trade Off " before, when you git a free Fleece and you Prepped and Handspun Yarns to Knit him a Hat. I don't blame you for not selling your Handspun Yarns, everything you make with them is so beautiful. The Sweater you're wearing at the end if the video podcast, have you spun and Knitted it from the Fibre and Yarn that your Mum and Dries bought you for Christmas.???? Its stunning, amazing and beautiful. ✨️🌟🎉👘 I think "Trade Offs" are a Wonderful idea.🌟✨️ Someone else on RUclips does "Trade Offs" too. She spins a 1lb if Fleece for a 1lb of Fleece.🐑🐑 She's in the USA Happy Spinning Fibre Friend 🎡🐑🥰🥰 Take care and stay safe Lots of love and Big Hugs Jen xxxx ❤️❤️❤️❤️🫂🫂🫂🫂🐕
@@MijnWolden Hi Jente, I hope you and Dries are both OK xx ❣️❣️❣️❣️ Thankyou so much for the Heart ♥ Sending Heart ♥ back to you ❤️💞 Your Sweater looks stunning and very beautiful. 👘👘 Your Handspun Yarns are always amazing and beautiful. 🎉🌟✨️ I hope you have a Wonderful Weekend 🌞🌟🔆 Happy Spinning and Knitting Fibre Friend 🎡🧶🐑🥰 Take care and stay safe Lots of love and Huge Hugs to you both Jen xxxx ❤️❤️❤️❤️🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂🐕
It is a beautiful color. I've seen some local Texels for sale, and may be interested, but have no idea what the fleece is like from a spinner's perspective. So, I'm appreciating your video.
Ok so because of you're wonderful content, I've splurged and bought two 3 yr old fleeces that havent been cleaned yet. I did buy it for only $30. 🤷♀️ but I've decided to give hand spinning a try again. Thankfully I have a set of vintage carding brushesi got at a yard sale years ago and a locally owned craft store has a carding machine for when I get impatient lol. And I've started talking to a lady who is selling alpaca fleece from animals she owns too, to mix in or spin separately. But first I must organize the chaos goblin hermit hole that is my garage before I can bring in more pretty shinies lol. 😂 tbh over all if I buy the fleece and do all the steps myself it's much cheaper then buying the yarn for all the projects I wanna do while trying to save money.
@@MijnWolden that is very true. 😅 I work graveyard so I craft while I work. It keeps me busy and awake. Plus I don't really have time frames for projects so im not all that worried about time spent making things. Plus with learning how to clean, spin and dye wool it's more of a, can I actually do it or will it not be something i can't do.
I've been trying to find local wool to process and i finally found some Wallisner Schwarznasenschaf wool for sale and even though the fleece is quite dirty I am having a blast working with it! there's also a cool online store who sells pre-prepped fiber from regional sheep and it was actually some of the first fiber i spun. I definitely have to go back there and buy some more, but for now i have a whole lot of fleece to process!
Tell me how you like the walliser schwarznase. I had a bag of it, but eventually gave it to someone else because I wasn't sure I would enjoy working with it
@MijnWolden Well I haven't done much more than scour part of it, but from the tests that I have already combed and spun it doesn't seem like the best fleece? It's not particularly soft but it's also not particularly prickly just somewhere in the middle I guess which isn't horrible. What I do find a little bit confusing is the lock structure since it's finer on the bottom and ends in a very defined curl. I find that if I spin just the curl part it's very rope-like, but if I mix it on my hand carders it blends out fine. I think I will simply continue my experiments and make a rug out of it if I find it too prickly for a wearable!
I _love_ the colour. That should look so good when it is knitted. By pure chance, I am spinning some Shetland wool in almost the same colour right now! (It was from a sample pack with several different colours.) I'm now wondering about ordering more, the colour is so appealing. Unfortunately it's not local, quite the opposite. I'm also wondering, since I'm spinning wool from Viking sheep*, if I should get a reproduction Viking spindle and spin it on that! Then all I have to do is learn to spin on a spindle (hurdle 1) in the Viking manner (hurdle 2). * Shetland sheep are descended from sheep brought to the islands by the Vikings, there hasn't been a lot of cross-breeding since then.
If the viking spindle method is the same as the rest of medieval European spindle spinning... Then you're in for a treat because in-hand spinning is both challenging, rewarding and just overall a really neat skill to have.
Wat een prachtige kleuren😍. Ik hou van de natuurtinten. Ik heb vorig jaar ook een blauwe texelaar mogen spinnen. Niet zo mooi strak als die van jou. Ik heb m uit de vacht gesponnen…dan krijg je nog meer kleuren variatie. Ik ben nu met een 2e deken bezig…de 10 steken deken😉….van texelaar….prachtig…heerlijk zacht en warm. Dank je wel voor je gezellige filmpje….tot snel.
I just got a chance to go to my local fiber festival and I was able to buy a lovely local black Shetland fleece for $75USD. It is very clean compared to the merino I bought online from halfway across the country, but both fleeces are just so fun to work with! Hooray for local fleece! In my area you mostly find alpaca, gotland, Shetland and occasionally Romney.
My uncle gives me a few of his fleeces per year, I also have an agreement with another livestock owner who sells me about 7 alpaca fleeces for £20-25 per year and I can only do about 4-5 fleeces per year if I’m well enough and I don’t spin all that, but I do scour, clean, card (multiple times) dye and card again before making 50g packs to sell.
Your local wool being criminally undervalued can be an interesting experience sometimes. A little while back, I was looking around to purchase a fleece of a local heritage breed, to gift to a spinner friend who lives in the Netherlands. All I found everywhere I looked in my language was the same thing: this breed is kept only for heritage and decorative reasons, the wool is bad quality and useless, and of course destroyed after shearing. I only ever found one person and her facebook page with a fondness for spinning it. Then, my friend was looking at wool on Dutch wool sites, as you do, and just...found wool of this breed for sale. As well as another, even rarer one. They bought some of the one I hoped to gift them, and sure, it's not the softest cloud in the world, but the staple length is kind of bonkers, and they adore working with it. And yet, over here, it is nothing but decorative fertiliser I hope the sheep owner enjoys the gorgeous yarn you made her! Such a lovely gift
I don't think you can find most heritage breeds online here either. The belgian heritage breeds aren't even in the Fleece and Fiber sourcebook, but if you know your farmers, you can get it directly from them.
Oh boy. That fleece and yarn is gorgeous!! I wish I could do this. For me, the issue is I don't have the space or facilities to wash and process the raw fleece. If I could get my hands on something that had at least been somewhat cleaned beforehand, I would definitely try that. I'm sure someone shared a link to a dutch seller months ago. Off to trawl through all the open tabs on my phone lol.
@@MijnWolden I can't find the website. Haven't saved it as a favourite website and can't find the video of yours with the comment. I can mostly only find hand dyed merino. Maybe I'm using the wrong words for Google.
@MijnWolden Just "Texel fleece or Texel spinning fibre" in Google. To be honest, I'm not having the best brain day today, so I should probably wait until I have charged up the brain battery again 😜 (If only it was that easy lol.)
I fully agree with and support the concept of this transaction of spinning for fleece. And for inspiring others to crave local wool! That is gorgeous! 🧶🙏🏽💗
This happens everywhere. I’m in Yorkshire and I know a few local farmers who don’t get much for their fleece and don’t sell to love fibre processors because they don’t know how to get in touch with them.
As long as the global South and east keep on being exploited for cheaper labour and vague enough production processes I don't think this issue will be resolved. Local farmers won't get fair compensation and local breeds will be still outbred by ''commercially viable'' ones like Merino...
You pose some interesting questions here. I go to fiber festivals with farms being in my state or the next state over, and I have bought fleece/roving. (Some of these farms are in the next town over from me.) I've also bought fleece from hundreds of miles away. The US is a BIG place. So if you buy a fleece from 3 states away and you're in the midwest (or say, Texas), is it still 'local' wool? What if you're in Alaska? Puerto Rico? Hawaii? Its an interesting question I don't have a ready answer for. As for pricing... I think a lot of shepherds are just now realizing that they can sell their wool. But at the same time, its very dirty. (There are programs that help beginner shepherds to get into the wool game.) I take the medium dirty wools. VM, some sand, some insects, seed pods, weak tips, etc. There are only a few times I've taken very dirty fleece, and that was in small amounts of 2lbs or less for $20 or less. All I can say is that I go by what the shepherd prices it, and what my wallet and fiber stash says. There's a huge list of ways for a shepherd to judge the worth of a particular fleece. I literally can't list them all here. And then a shepherd can price accordingly. That's when it pays to know other farmers selling fleeces or be part of an organization. They may have pricing tips. But I don't really haggle for fleeces. (My budget is small tho.) I may ask for a combined price/shipping if it's a large purchase. Keeping sheep (or other livestock) is expensive, and I figure that the shepherd will do the work of calculating their costs vs revenue. If the fleece is inexpensive (I think I got 5.5 lbs of Cormo X in a medium dirty condition for $55 or so) I may buy something else from them. There are shepherds that list fleeces out of my price range like $120 for 2.5lbs of super clean premium baby suri alpaca. *shrugs* I saw it on etsy.
Yeah, Belgium is like the size of Vermont. So only one state, in a sea of States that are much bigger too. So ''local'' is a much different word than in countries as big as the US. And the internet makes ''local'' even broader. Right now the entirety of the EU is ''local'' because it can be shipped to my door in like two days?
I would absolutely love to get my hands on some Blue Texel, it looks glorious. I'm not sure if there are any breeders in Australia but if I find some I would buy some.
Haha I love to be Niche. I have so many weird Niches. But spinning in tibetan buddhist class in india makes me feel super Niche. Haha. Love your project. Have a great weekend
As an Australian knitter/ dyer and wanna be spinner, we have breeds other than boring old merino! So many people here don't know about them though :( We have Finn sheep and Polworth that I know of at least, and I'm certain there would be others too!!
I have never gotten to see (and feel) texel wool. It looks really nice. But one that I have tried is some Zwartbles that a friend in England sent me. I really like that one. If you haven't tried it maybe you could find some of it.
Thank you for sharing 💖 hearing how happy the fluffiness and softness of the wool made you, made me happier as well. I hope your „utopian“ plan of spreding the local wool love works! Would love to see the lighter colour wool process you mentioned as well 👀 the 250g you showed is that all the wool from one sheep or how much gram would you get from one sheep? I feel like that’s also a calculation point for the discussion topic of "value“, not that I have an answer to it 😅 But I do hope you kept also enough of this amazing yarn for yourself, to value your own contribution. Also you mentioned this sheep was originally bred for the colour, but I‘m having a hard time pickng up on any blue shades at all. Does it have blue shades irl am I just totally misunderstanding the name? 😅
The 250gram was everything that fit my bucket, but maybe like a third of the entire fleece. Blue is a colourvariation of Texel sheep that is mostly grey, but has some blue undertones.
3:09 you asked why you talk dramatically, and from what i can tell, thats just how dutch/belgian folks are, my dutch family members and family friends also speak with such dramatic flair! Love from NewZealand!
I adore the first hand spun/hand knit sweater that you were wearing. It’s kind of pumpkin and marigold colored. Did you knit it from a pattern, or something you came up with yourself?
After I had already commented (I was in a rush) I glanced at that video and wondered if that was maybe the making of your sweater! I’ll go watch it asap! Thanks so much for your reply! ❤️ I just found you because I love antique French spindles too (and Josefin)! Can’t wait to watch more if you!
After I had already commented (I was in a rush) I glanced at that video and wondered if that was maybe the making of your sweater! I’ll go watch it asap! Thanks so much for your reply! ❤️ I just found you because I love antique French spindles too (and Josefin)! Can’t wait to watch more if you!
After I had already commented (I was in a rush) I glanced at that video and wondered if that was maybe the making of your sweater! I’ll go watch it asap! Thanks so much for your reply! ❤️ I just found you because I love antique French spindles too (and Josefin)! Can’t wait to watch more if you!
After I had already commented (I was in a rush) I glanced at that video and wondered if that was maybe the making of your sweater! I’ll go watch it asap! Thanks so much for your reply! ❤️ I just found you because I love antique French spindles too (and Josefin)! Can’t wait to watch more if you!
Wow I do not understand why…is there not a market there for it? I would love some but little far from Wyoming…not economically feasible…maybe you can start a biz collective coop
@@jeanmccullough7737 well, why do efforts to process local wool, which is harder for machines, costs labour, time and water, when you can import wool for a fraction of the cost?
First of all, NOOOOO to your ankle! I hope you’re resting and recovering well. Second, I’m so glad you’re enjoying making your batts this way! I wanted to faceplant into the squishy bits that were coming off your carder and now I want to spin a skein of yarn for every shepherd I work with. Thanks so much for the inspiration and for sharing such delicious fiber joy!
I recently found a farm local to me (I live in NZ) that sells amazing carded Corredale fleece - they also sell unprocessed fleece but due to my budget and disability needs I can't process (e.g. scour and card) my own. So - if there are fellow New Zealanders here who would like the name of the wool mill in Fielding let me know & I'll post the name of the place so you can check them out.
I do all sorts of crafting, making etc. I don’t sell my work, because people refuse to pay even a slightly fair price for the work rendered. It’s much easier to buy from China where they have slave labor. I’ve been commissioned to do many projects, only to be stiffed and robbed. You were sweet to spin the yarn!
Local texel probably isn't an option. However I was blown away to find an online store selling swartbles. Let's see if I can find them again. The Wool Room offers "Merino x Border Leicester Raw Wool Fleece 300g". The Fibre Arts Shed has a wide variety of tops but they have already had quite a bit of preparation done (they have swartbles.)
@@resourcedragon yeah. That's the issue really. I get a lot of combed top from fiber arts shed, but if I want to work from raw fleece the options are limited. I found a fairly local to me finn sheep farm which is nice, anybody living in Victoria Australia wanting a Finn fleece might get lucky with Fairfield Finns. The main trouble is that many sheep breeds in Australia are only kept as meat sheep and their fleeces aren't usually kept from what I've found.
@@charlot-temisery: Back in the day (say the 1970s) obtaining fleeces wasn't so difficult but I was away from spinning for a bit and the situation appears to have changed a lot and not for the better. Part of that probably gets back to so many small farms not surviving the 1970s, they used to support a family and even some seasonal workers but the larger farms and companies were able to achieve economies of scale and (sometimes using methods that were a long way short of ethical) pushed out the smaller farmers.
There's so many beautiful local fleeces being offered for practically free on marktplaats, curse my shitty small apartment - I /will get some in a few years time i swear!!
Camera doesn't. I am currently working with choclate brown shot through with white guard hairs and it looks the same as what the video shows. I doubt it is, though.
I knitted with belgian texel and its warm and nice to knit. But it was sooo expensive, its bio supermarket ware so extra expensive, Thats the sad thing, they take the "waste wool" and process it and suddenly sold as luxury item. If you are poor on craft money you have to use the big company chemical and big farm yarns. Sure saving money and then buying is the key but its unfair i think to make local and bio such a hurdle. (and i talk machine processed yarns, not your kind all handwork process)
Yeah that's the thing. And the cheap stuff is imported, more fit to be milled by machines, and our local wool is harder to process, thus more expensive... And it keeps cycling like that. People are used to €1 skeins in Wibra or zeeman, they will not pay €30+ for something local unless they actually care about stuff like that
❤ Love everything about that video! I think you're doing great in being an advocat for local wool and your local sheep 👏... that fleece - love that shade! So colorful in all its darkness. May i ask, did the sheep mention something about having cookies? (😅that joke might be to flat, i'm sorry) I'm always in love with the naturally dark fleeces. As for the question ... hm, it might be so that there is no such thing as a fair price anymore, once the market and the perception of value (yes, value in and of it self) is as damaged as it is. It might be that the only fairness can be achieved if all participants (e. g. farmer-spinner-knitter) just come to a reasonable agreement, and if communication is as transparent and open-minded as possible. Simply by calculating, the value is just surreal. Mend the smaller picture to get a new bigger picture. And that's why local [...] is so important.
I hope you don't mind me saying that I think this is a loaded question. Because most of our wool is a medium grade wool, microns 25 and up. So no, the industry and probably a lot of People won't say this is next to skin soft. But that is why our local wools get ignored in favor of exotic fine breeds. But personally, to me it is next to skin soft. And also, does every yarn need to be next to your skin? It can have different purposes as well
I am a professional custom chiengora spinner in the USA. I charge $45 per ounce of finished yarn and blend with local Jacob sheep. Spinning with Dog,cat, horse etc . Is challenging. I make no apology for my pricing and will go up $5 in July. At the end of the day, yes it’s expensive but I’m only making minimum wage. The time investment is hard to imagine in our culture of fast fashion.
In US dollars, in my local area I could most likely sell 1 fleece like that for between $20.00 to $30.00 dollars. If it is white, a fleece could go for $30-$50(depending on how big and how clean it is) That is to local craftspeople and hobbies on a small scale. Total for the four fleeces raw like you received them would come out to around $80-$100.
I am always so amazed to find out how many sheep it takes to make a certain amount of yardage! I think, especially in USA, we are so used to slave labor, underpaying, undercutting, and mass production, highly mechanized as well, that we really are so out of touch of what something is truly worth, even just intrinsic value! I love your videos and hope you do more like this one too!
I think the enitre "modern" western world is so used to this practice being moved out of their country, and into countries with low wages (almost slave labour indeed) that we got so far removed from it...
![Jack Harlow - Hello Miss Johnson [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Q86_nlRoIGw/mqdefault.jpg)
I am on year 3 combing my bags of local fleece! I was spinning on a drop spindle in the park today when an Iranian man approached me. He said he had seen the rural people doing it but never got a chance to ask about it. He found it all very interesting. I apprrciated the chance to teach about this ancient craft.
It's funny how it is very Often men that ask questions, I think they want to know about the mechanics of it all
Thanks for the shout out to those of us who are in NZ and Australia
40 million. Ok. That needs to sink in for a moment
The environmental issues are nuanced and I suspect it may be very different for you in NZ compared to us in Australia.
Regenerative ruminant agriculture is very much a thing and can help to turn poor land into land that does start to sequester carbon and which holds water, instead of the water eroding it and any plants just dying of thirst. For us in Australia that's something we really can work on, there are large parts of Australia that are simply unsuited for forestry but which can carry sheep.
That doesn't excuse the irresponsible way in which native forest has been and continues to be felled in Australia. Forests can also be a bit of a two edged sword here in Australia, they burn and while *_controlled_* burns can be used to bring about a nett reduction in carbon dioxide production, bushfires are big nett contributors to CO2 production .
There is also the issue in Australia that getting sheep meats from the paddock to the consumer's plate is one of the most efficient in terms of water usage compared to a lot of other foodstuffs, which is a big consideration for us.
Your climate and your soils are very different to ours, which may well make the environmental considerations very different.
@@resourcedragon that's fascinating - and extremely different from the issues we're facing in NZ. We have fewer problems with fire (although there has definitely been an uptick in fire recently, its nothing in comparison with Australia) and I don't believe we have any major water-table issues. Usually, land that has been used for sheep farming can grow trees immediately, and we don't have to worry about lowering the water-table first. There are also a number of protections around felling native timber - most of the native trees that are prized for their timber are now protected, as they were massively over-felled in the late 19th and early 20th centuries (e.g. mature rimu and kauri are both protected and can not be felled for timber generally speaking).
Most of the forestry in NZ that I'm familiar with are exotic pine forests planted on what was once pasture land (that was formally native forest converted to pasture, see note on historic over-felling) - which has it's problems, don't get me wrong.
However, because the NZ economy relies so heavily on agriculture - in particular meat and milk - our main carbon emissions as a country are actually produced by livestock. Basically, sheep and cows burp greenhouse gasses - including methane -and this accounts for about 50% of NZ net carbon emissions. In comparison, forestry is often a carbon sink, at least while the trees are growing. Obviously, if existing native forests are felled, that's very bad - but as sheep don't graze in forested areas, any crossover from sheep farming to forestry is unlikely to affect areas that were already in native forest. Hence my note earlier - I know a similar switch wouldn't necessarily a positive thing for carbon emissions everywhere, but I believe that in NZ at least, a move away from heavy reliance on sheep farming is probably a positive move with specific regard to carbon emissions (providing they aren't replaced with cattle or other methane burping livestock, of course).
That Blue Texel fleece and the yarn look fabulous! This lady is going to be very happy with the skeins you have spun. She offered the fleeces for free and gets back some luxurious, exclusive yarn to knit her heart out with. I’d say this is a very fair trade for both of you. I’m secretly hoping she’ll keep in touch and sends you a picture of what she knits with your yarn from her sheep.
By the way, I absolutely loved the ‘basically lawn mowers with a heartbeat’. So accurate!
She did send me pictures of the sheep already, so she might also send some of the knitting 😁
I should not have watched this. There is local wool available in my area. $25 for a 55gal trash bag of wool. I do not need to know this. I do not have the tools to process wool. I have never done it before. But gosh do I want to now.
All I can say is… welcome to the dark side… why don’t you step in…?
All joking aside, if you’re a spinner, this is tempting indeed. I personally decided to go ‘low impact - low labour’ and got myself the fleece of an alpaca. No souring needed.
Just yesterday I spied an alpaca fleece for free on a second hand website. I was so tempted… but alas, no more room to store it and I’m still working myself through my stash of spinnable fibre to make room for new… and I need to keep some room available, because my daughter has a few friends who’ll soon be shearing lambs. I’ve already checked what I need: several large buckets, some soap (hand soap or dish soap), a drying rack, hand cards/dog brushes (for lack of a drum carder), my spinning wheel and time. I’ve been gifted wool combs should I wish to comb instead of carding. I’m all set. 😊
$35 in my area and my husband is begging me to not do it as I have so much fiber and yarn to work through already.
Welcome to the rabbithole. It goes deep and has many branches. But the company is great 🤭
Yes, yes you do. Even the doctors say you need fiber in your diet. You’re doing it for your health.😂
Unfortunately my partner has put their foot down on the wool situation and I can't really fight them on it because we have a very small house. One day I will be able to make room for some raw fleece, but not this year.
I think the sheep owner will be very happy with the yarn trade!
She was! And she managed to knit a sweater with it in the end 😁
Yes! I totally agree, it's so important to value our local wool! I was so lucky too this year, a friend of mine randomly talked to a owner of three sheep and they arranged to get me the wool 😍And my own grandpa owns sheep, my brother made sure to set me aside two fleeces! I'm so grateful to have sooo much raw wool to spin now. I'm not sure yet, what I'm gonna make for the owners, but I'm sure I'll figure it out.
I'm from germany btw ^^ And very inspired by you, I love every single video you make! You just make my days brighter 💛
Oooooh how exciting for you! Have fun with your fleeces :D
I love the color! I adore grey fleeces. I'm sure the sheep owner will love getting some yarn from her sheep. Where I'm located, mills for processing small batches of wool into roving are scarce, and ones that will also spin that into yarn are even more rare. And mills are closing as people retire. A couple of friends recently opened a mill to clean and process fiber in to roving. They've had some customers bring in 10+ year old wool that's been stacking up because the customer didn't know where to bring it for processing.
I've heard that the waiting time to get something processed for the mill most local to me is 2+ years right now
Fleece prices in canadian dollars: compost worthy filth, $5 or free if you pick up. Good ordinary fleece sheared by a pro and kept reasonably clean, $250, skirted. High quality fleece from a babied sheep wearing a coat all year, shipped from minnesota, $600. Worth it too. 30g of dyed corriedale roving from new zealand is $7 at the wool shop. Those malabrigo merinos from argentina are 100g and cost $40-50 depending on the shop. So that gives a good breakdown for here. As you see, prices vary wildly and farmers often have no idea what to ask. If its a farmer who just hacked it off and shoved it in a bag but the sheep.were kept clean, pay up to $100cad. If properly sheared and skirted but nothing special, offet over $100 and keep in mind he paid a pro shearer to do the job. Shearers for yarn wool are a dying profession and we need to support them or we will not have decent fleeces.
These sound like livable prices for farmer and shearer
I love your video, your approach and all the way you see the world : my neighbour gave me two fleeces (he wanted to give me the twelve fleeces of all his sheep, but I only choose a brown and a white… it’s a first attempt for me, and a lot of raw wool to process)
It is one of the most beautiful present someone gave me, and he didn’t understand why because he is used to throw the wool away because nobody is interested in it….i gave him in exchange a good bottle of wine and propose him to try to prove him that his wool and some value and beauty inside 😊
I’ve already washed and spun a small amount, just to try, and it’s SO different and interesting compared to merinos ;)
I m looking forward to continue and I hope I will have soon some sunny days to sort, wash and card…since fours weeks, it’s raining every day in France…my plan is to prepare all this wool to spin it for the « tour de fleece » or for the fall.
I agree with you: handspun yarn is too expensive to be sell…and it’s difficult to estimate the right price for a local fleece : but what’s priceless is to bring into this world made of money and materialism the little seed of the beauty and the magic of what a human hand can make: just pure alchemy, transmutation…sun, water, grass transmuted in socks … pure magic as no price because it’s pure joy of living ❤
Oh wow what poetry at the end 🥺♥️
Oh wow what poetry at the end 🥺♥️
There are those who claim that both spindle spinning and knitting are forms of witchcraft, with the spindle being the wand in the former and the needles the wands in the latter, along with incantations like, "k1, p1, k1, yon, k2tog."
I think we are in danger of losing the magic of knowing how to turn raw materials, like fleece or reeds and rushes or a hundred and one other things into useful items with our own hands.
Oh my, Jente...! that is some seriously gorgeous wool you have spun and I am absolutely positive that the owner of those Texels will be blown away by your gift as you were theirs.
I've been trying desperately to get my hands on local floof but none of the sheep around me (and there are plenty, I live in the countryside) have been sheared yet.. apparently it's too cold and wet still to shear them 🤷 However not to be beaten I dragged hubby off to a (just an hour outside of being) local wool gathering a couple of weekends ago and managed to grab me a massive full longwool fleece, 2 bags full of black Hebridean and a gorgeous bag full of Shetland, all raw all gorgeous... Oooooh and 500g of Finnish. Can't wait to get stuck in only I have had to wait as I pinched a nerve in my shoulder drop spindling miles of yarn whilst bumbling about up Scotland... I just couldn't stop even though I was feeling the burn so I've rested around 2 weeks now and I'm making myself wait until this coming weekend to get back at it again. This week is the longest week of my life 😂
I hope it heals quickly! All the fleeces sound so lovely!
So awesome you get wool free if I had been know back when I was younger that I would want to spin wool this much I would have had my parents keep all of our sheep wool
Oh my goodness what a wonderful and informative video!! 😍😍
A local farmer friend was bagging up his fleeces recently and there was one left over, so I was asked if I wanted it! I only picked up the Blue Texel fleece this Tuesday and it’s rather big! Today is the first day I have had time to work out what to do with it, so I have been exploring social media for a few hours this afternoon! I am so glad I have found you, and I will head off to watch more of your videos soon, but now I have to go and walk my dog, then make my evening meal!
I knit, felt and work with mixed media often with textiles, but have never spun or treated raw fleece before. This could well be leading me down a very long rabbit hole but excited to explore! Locally on the Orkney island where I live, there are several spinning wheels and carders available, either to borrow or buy, so after saying for the past two years I don’t need another hobby….I may have to eat my words…or rather spin my wool!! 😉🤣🤣
The rabbithole is deep, but the friends you make are the best over there :D
First of all I just discovered your channel today - and you are absolutely wonderful!!! No pretense, no posturing - just plain passion and love for wool and spinning and knitting! And added that you are doing something about your local wool economy!!! There is so much out in the cyber and social wool world I look forward to you making great bit waves to benefit the woolen world. Thank you.
Thank you 😁 and welcome to the chaos
Ooooooh the amount of squish in those batts cannot be put in words @.@
Exactly!
Aye! A shoutout to the aussies and kiwis!
I found a lot of the "discoloured" merino from my family farm (which used to be triple the size it is rn) is actualy a gorgeous variety of browns and almost golden colours that the buyers don't really want (thanks to our neighbours corriedale jumping into our ewes) and its so lovely to spin!
I get a few fleeces each year that my dad and i skirt together and he helps me learn the shearing processes with him!
What lovely moments with your dad!
That yarn is gorrrjuss. I never complain about how terribly expensive handspun yarn is. I just feel terribly sad that I cannot afford to buy it. Then add to that the hours and the creativity put into making an item using that beautiful wool = $$$$ too much math for my brain ..... and then add to that the off the charts stress and anger management I go thru when someone asks you to make them something and then is horrified about the waiting time to make it and the price, comparing it to buying some mass manufactured nylonish item at the China store (and you are barely covering the cost of the yarn) ... that is why I only crochet, knit and sew for my absolute beloveds. I hope that looooong tirade answers your question as to whether or not those 3 skeins are a good trade for the floof - I say YES !!! YES .. a thousand times yes !! It would be lovely to see what that kind lady makes with your beautiful gift to her.
I think sh's going to make a scarf. At least she asked "is it enough for a scarf?" and I told her that it is more than enough for a scarf and that made her really happy.
My mother-in-law still has a couple of Texel lawn mowers. I hope there is a resurgence in your local wool market. I often wish for more variety in wool, I like to work with different textures and staple lengths. I manged to get a English Leicester x Dorset lamb fleece last Spring and it is now cleaned, carded, dyed, carded again, and waiting in a big box for Tour de Fleece to begin.
Yes I am impatient for TdF too. I got some nice Suffolk batts waiting for me
Your offer to spin for the owner of sheep lady is quite generous. I wouldn’t worry about it at all or feel guilty about having received the wool for free. It would probably have been thrown away otherwise. But now, as you say, the wool will be able to live and be seen by many if the lady will knit something nice out of it. It’s a win, win situation. Well done 🧶👍🏼However, spinning wool is a labour of love, there’s no way you can put an actual price on it, as you cannot put a price on knitting.Everything you do out of love is always a good thing 😊❤
There's no price on love, you're right
That yarn is gorgeous! I'm sure the sheep's owner will be very happy to receive it. I loved this premise for the video, it was really engaging. Coincidentally, I just started the book "Vanishing Fleece: Adventures in American Wool" by Clara Parkes last night, and the book is all about each step it takes to turn a fleece into yarn in a wool industry that's rapidly changing due to market demands. I'm about a third of the way through the book and really really enjoying it! You might too.
Thank you for the tip 😁
Lol your energy and excitement over floof is so funny. We fiber artists are so similar no matter where we are from. Love it!
I don't think anyone gets this deep into the fiber arts rabbithole without this level of enthousiasm 😁
I do buy a fleece of Blue Texel every year. I love seperating it in colors: dark, middle and light and then spin it. It is such a thrill to knit a fair isle sweater from only one sheep.
Thank you for doing the maths and remind us why we should not sell our handspun yarn ;-)
Well, if you want to sell it and you find a buyer that wants to pay a right price, then I'm not stopping you, but I'm never going to
Those are gorgeous skeins and I hope she loves them. I am a natural color lover as well - especially the dark grey and black ones. Your spinning is wonderful and I love your advocacy for local wool farmers. ❤❤❤
Natural colours are so beautiful!
A beautiful wool deserves a dramatic voice!
Hahaha yes 😁
Oh that blue texel looks sooooo good!! I will have to get my hands on some!!
Yes you will have to 😁
I was so glad to see someone mention the Fibershed movement, and you might find some of the articles on their website interesting from a restoring value in local fiber economy perspective (even if a lot of the specific breeders and activities are local to their area of northern California). Rebecca Burgess, the founder, has done a few interesting videos (including one on natural dyeing) but I think you'd find her book, Harvesting Color, interesting from the natural-dye-in-your-own-area perspective, and I'm looking forward to reading her Fibershed: Growing a Movement of Farmers, Fashion Activists, and Makers for a New Textile Economy. I hope that by now your ankle feels much better--tendon things can take forever to heal!
Sadly, Fibershed Belgium is not what it should be...
the blue texel looks sooooooo luxurious! :O
by watching your channel I've really started to look more into local wool and discovered a whole new world, and there's a different kind of connection when you see the animal the wool is from :)
Right?! Like with the zwartbles I spun last year I know the names of the sheep...
Loved this! If I had sheep I'd be thrilled to have something made of their wool. I have a cat but I think she'd disapprove.
Now I really want to meet those sheep. They should know we love them and their lovely floof.
I'll Tell the owner 😁
I hear you! The colours of that fleece are amazing, and I mean I EFFIN LOVE THE COLOURS, I'd want to go a varigated yarn and knit a blanket! I don't know why but I LOVE IT, LOVE LOVE LOVE it. And I can't spin. I have no use for it living in the tropics. But I LOVE it.
I do hope they get less rare, and dang, I want to move to Belgium and help out!
Medium grade wool is indeed of not much use in the tropics, you'd sweat yourself an eye out 😅
I love dark natural wool, good for both you and the owner!
Love your yarn and the sheep owner will love this kind thank you gift!!! Would love to see what she knits from it.
I got a lovely llama fleece that I carded , spun and made a cardigan from. I paid $30 Canadian for the fleece! Absolutely loved the whole process. Please continue with these fibre shananigans!!!!
I'm not planning on not continuing ☺️
Beautiful yarn you spun! The shots in the sunlight were stunning.
Thank you 😁
Absolutely beautiful fleece/yarn. I sometimes get free fleece and sometimes buy some. @$80 US for a fleece depending on breed. Also you have a specialty skill which is why it is too hard to charge for what we do. I only take occasional custom orders anymore and am really doing it because I have a love for what I do which is also why my son encouraged me to start my channel. I recently was gifted 4 spinning wheels, totes and totes of Fiber and fleeces and tools and soooo much and the woman asked me to make her something colorful. I said, I can do that 😁
For 4 wheels and a bunch of tools I can also make her something colourful :D
@MijnWolden 😅 I know right, I think it was a fair trade 😁
lol i like that , a lawn more with a heart beat , a very good one and gives a good fiber in return
They are indeed very good lawn mowers :D
I did do sweaters worth for some who gifted me a beautiful fleece and his wife was an incredible knitter who knitted the most amazing sweaters she was also going blind ( now fully blind) and I felt she deserved that much wool yarn
She sounds like very deserving indeed
I'm litereally squeeling as you take the wool out of the bag; Blue Texel is my favourite wool and it makes me so ridiculously happy! If I ever manage to move to the little farmhouse of my dreams, a Blue Texel is definitely one of the sheep breeds I want for my spinner's flock (which would, of course, consist entirely of different local sheep breeds).
That's a great choice for a favourite yarn!
Just want to submit my sincere appreciation for the absolute beauty of that blue texel wool. That end result is just superb. 🇦🇺🎸⚡️🤘🏾🤘🏼💋💜 would love to crochet with that
It is beautiful indeed, after tour de fleece is done (because I have long standing different plans for that) I'm going to dive right into the Blue Texel again
I usually comb and or flick my locks before I put them in my manual drum carder. I do multiple passes too. I do one pass with each batt; and divide the batts in half. Put them in two piles; put first 1/2 at to bottom of the opposite pile. Take a half from each pile and repeat this at least 2 times. This will give you very consistent fibre to spin in to what ever you want. Your Blue Texel yarn is screaming a cabled sweater to me.
it is! that was one of my first thoughts: to make another bookish cardigan (Annie Lupton) with the light grey blue texel
I think you would take interest in the Fibershed project, which aims to help develop regional fiber economies. Fibershed Chesapeake was at Maryland sheep and wool this year and is my local branch, but I believe they have a branch in Belgium and one in the NL.
There is a fibershed Belgium indeed, but I can't find much about it. Unto investigations!
Could you demo how you care for/launder your wool items? I’ve seen several other channels answer the same question, but it’s interesting to see the similarities and differences, especially across cultures and those with larger and smaller interior spaces.
OMG, saw my first Blue Texel sheep yesterday! I am in love! I have to wait though, they are super expensive over here, Hopefully the price will come down as they become more accessable.
Is moving to the Low Countries cheaper? Because that might be a solution ;)
Hi Jente, I hope you're OK xx ❣️❣️❣️❣️
Thankyou so much for sharing this video podcast.
I love the colours of the Blue Texel Fleece.
Your Batts look so squishy and thefinishes Handspun Yarns look amazing. 🎡🧶✨️🌟
I'm sure thar the Lady Farmer will love your Handspun Yarns and she'll make something beautiful with it.✨️🌟🌟
I remember you doing a "Trade Off " before, when you git a free Fleece and you Prepped and Handspun Yarns to Knit him a Hat.
I don't blame you for not selling your Handspun Yarns, everything you make with them is so beautiful.
The Sweater you're wearing at the end if the video podcast, have you spun and Knitted it from the Fibre and Yarn that your Mum and Dries bought you for Christmas.????
Its stunning, amazing and beautiful. ✨️🌟🎉👘
I think "Trade Offs" are a Wonderful idea.🌟✨️
Someone else on RUclips does
"Trade Offs" too.
She spins a 1lb if Fleece for a 1lb of Fleece.🐑🐑
She's in the USA
Happy Spinning Fibre Friend 🎡🐑🥰🥰
Take care and stay safe
Lots of love and Big Hugs Jen xxxx ❤️❤️❤️❤️🫂🫂🫂🫂🐕
Yes that is indeed that sweater, well spotted, Jen ☺️
@@MijnWolden Hi Jente, I hope you and Dries are both OK xx ❣️❣️❣️❣️
Thankyou so much for the Heart ♥
Sending Heart ♥ back to you ❤️💞
Your Sweater looks stunning and very beautiful. 👘👘
Your Handspun Yarns are always amazing and beautiful. 🎉🌟✨️
I hope you have a Wonderful Weekend 🌞🌟🔆
Happy Spinning and Knitting Fibre Friend 🎡🧶🐑🥰
Take care and stay safe
Lots of love and Huge Hugs to you both Jen xxxx ❤️❤️❤️❤️🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂🐕
5:10 Reminds me of how I double and triple mill soap to make increasingly more pleasant soap.
Sometimes Patience pays off 😁
Gorgeous 🥰, and i LOVE the drama and superlatives. Always click on new videos 🎉
Thank you :D
15:52 Ewetopia indeed! 😂
Begin the ravelution!
Damnit I missed this great oppuntinity
@@MijnWolden save it for next time!
It is a beautiful color. I've seen some local Texels for sale, and may be interested, but have no idea what the fleece is like from a spinner's perspective. So, I'm appreciating your video.
I really love Texel, it's great to spin with
Ok so because of you're wonderful content, I've splurged and bought two 3 yr old fleeces that havent been cleaned yet. I did buy it for only $30. 🤷♀️ but I've decided to give hand spinning a try again. Thankfully I have a set of vintage carding brushesi got at a yard sale years ago and a locally owned craft store has a carding machine for when I get impatient lol. And I've started talking to a lady who is selling alpaca fleece from animals she owns too, to mix in or spin separately. But first I must organize the chaos goblin hermit hole that is my garage before I can bring in more pretty shinies lol. 😂 tbh over all if I buy the fleece and do all the steps myself it's much cheaper then buying the yarn for all the projects I wanna do while trying to save money.
Unless you start counting the hours.... And then a sweater costs thousands of dollars in yarn alone 😁
@@MijnWolden that is very true. 😅 I work graveyard so I craft while I work. It keeps me busy and awake. Plus I don't really have time frames for projects so im not all that worried about time spent making things. Plus with learning how to clean, spin and dye wool it's more of a, can I actually do it or will it not be something i can't do.
Now I want to spin with this wool lol. It’s being added to my fiber wish list
Have Fun if you can find it
I've been trying to find local wool to process and i finally found some Wallisner Schwarznasenschaf wool for sale and even though the fleece is quite dirty I am having a blast working with it! there's also a cool online store who sells pre-prepped fiber from regional sheep and it was actually some of the first fiber i spun. I definitely have to go back there and buy some more, but for now i have a whole lot of fleece to process!
Tell me how you like the walliser schwarznase. I had a bag of it, but eventually gave it to someone else because I wasn't sure I would enjoy working with it
@MijnWolden Well I haven't done much more than scour part of it, but from the tests that I have already combed and spun it doesn't seem like the best fleece? It's not particularly soft but it's also not particularly prickly just somewhere in the middle I guess which isn't horrible. What I do find a little bit confusing is the lock structure since it's finer on the bottom and ends in a very defined curl. I find that if I spin just the curl part it's very rope-like, but if I mix it on my hand carders it blends out fine. I think I will simply continue my experiments and make a rug out of it if I find it too prickly for a wearable!
Not all yarn needs to be next to skin anyway, a rug is a great idea!
I _love_ the colour. That should look so good when it is knitted.
By pure chance, I am spinning some Shetland wool in almost the same colour right now! (It was from a sample pack with several different colours.) I'm now wondering about ordering more, the colour is so appealing. Unfortunately it's not local, quite the opposite.
I'm also wondering, since I'm spinning wool from Viking sheep*, if I should get a reproduction Viking spindle and spin it on that! Then all I have to do is learn to spin on a spindle (hurdle 1) in the Viking manner (hurdle 2).
* Shetland sheep are descended from sheep brought to the islands by the Vikings, there hasn't been a lot of cross-breeding since then.
If the viking spindle method is the same as the rest of medieval European spindle spinning... Then you're in for a treat because in-hand spinning is both challenging, rewarding and just overall a really neat skill to have.
it look wonderful
Beautiful wool. Absolutely stunning what you made it into
Thank you ☺️
Wat een prachtige kleuren😍. Ik hou van de natuurtinten. Ik heb vorig jaar ook een blauwe texelaar mogen spinnen. Niet zo mooi strak als die van jou. Ik heb m uit de vacht gesponnen…dan krijg je nog meer kleuren variatie. Ik ben nu met een 2e deken bezig…de 10 steken deken😉….van texelaar….prachtig…heerlijk zacht en warm.
Dank je wel voor je gezellige filmpje….tot snel.
Er zit inderdaad zoveel kleur in die vachten 😁
Very good video on so many levels. Great to see a conversation about relative values. Thank you so much for this video. Subscribed.
Thank you!
That yarn is beautiful! Yes! I want it!!!
Everyone wants it!
Absolutely beautiful!
Truly gorgeous fiber and yarn!
Thank you ☺️
I just got a chance to go to my local fiber festival and I was able to buy a lovely local black Shetland fleece for $75USD. It is very clean compared to the merino I bought online from halfway across the country, but both fleeces are just so fun to work with! Hooray for local fleece! In my area you mostly find alpaca, gotland, Shetland and occasionally Romney.
Hooray! Have fun!
My uncle gives me a few of his fleeces per year, I also have an agreement with another livestock owner who sells me about 7 alpaca fleeces for £20-25 per year and I can only do about 4-5 fleeces per year if I’m well enough and I don’t spin all that, but I do scour, clean, card (multiple times) dye and card again before making 50g packs to sell.
Your local wool being criminally undervalued can be an interesting experience sometimes. A little while back, I was looking around to purchase a fleece of a local heritage breed, to gift to a spinner friend who lives in the Netherlands. All I found everywhere I looked in my language was the same thing: this breed is kept only for heritage and decorative reasons, the wool is bad quality and useless, and of course destroyed after shearing. I only ever found one person and her facebook page with a fondness for spinning it.
Then, my friend was looking at wool on Dutch wool sites, as you do, and just...found wool of this breed for sale. As well as another, even rarer one. They bought some of the one I hoped to gift them, and sure, it's not the softest cloud in the world, but the staple length is kind of bonkers, and they adore working with it. And yet, over here, it is nothing but decorative fertiliser
I hope the sheep owner enjoys the gorgeous yarn you made her! Such a lovely gift
I don't think you can find most heritage breeds online here either. The belgian heritage breeds aren't even in the Fleece and Fiber sourcebook, but if you know your farmers, you can get it directly from them.
Oh boy. That fleece and yarn is gorgeous!! I wish I could do this. For me, the issue is I don't have the space or facilities to wash and process the raw fleece. If I could get my hands on something that had at least been somewhat cleaned beforehand, I would definitely try that. I'm sure someone shared a link to a dutch seller months ago. Off to trawl through all the open tabs on my phone lol.
Dutch sellers a plenty! Especially for Texel wool 😁
@@MijnWolden I can't find the website. Haven't saved it as a favourite website and can't find the video of yours with the comment. I can mostly only find hand dyed merino. Maybe I'm using the wrong words for Google.
@@gemmaf_ Don't know what terms you're using or what sites you're looking for, but you can find raw texel fleece on etsy for example.
@MijnWolden Just "Texel fleece or Texel spinning fibre" in Google. To be honest, I'm not having the best brain day today, so I should probably wait until I have charged up the brain battery again 😜 (If only it was that easy lol.)
Fabulous yarn, Jente! I want to dive face first into your batts. harpingJanet
It's a privilege to faceplant wool 😁
I fully agree with and support the concept of this transaction of spinning for fleece. And for inspiring others to crave local wool! That is gorgeous! 🧶🙏🏽💗
Thank you 😁
This happens everywhere. I’m in Yorkshire and I know a few local farmers who don’t get much for their fleece and don’t sell to love fibre processors because they don’t know how to get in touch with them.
As long as the global South and east keep on being exploited for cheaper labour and vague enough production processes I don't think this issue will be resolved. Local farmers won't get fair compensation and local breeds will be still outbred by ''commercially viable'' ones like Merino...
You pose some interesting questions here. I go to fiber festivals with farms being in my state or the next state over, and I have bought fleece/roving. (Some of these farms are in the next town over from me.) I've also bought fleece from hundreds of miles away. The US is a BIG place. So if you buy a fleece from 3 states away and you're in the midwest (or say, Texas), is it still 'local' wool? What if you're in Alaska? Puerto Rico? Hawaii? Its an interesting question I don't have a ready answer for.
As for pricing... I think a lot of shepherds are just now realizing that they can sell their wool. But at the same time, its very dirty. (There are programs that help beginner shepherds to get into the wool game.)
I take the medium dirty wools. VM, some sand, some insects, seed pods, weak tips, etc. There are only a few times I've taken very dirty fleece, and that was in small amounts of 2lbs or less for $20 or less.
All I can say is that I go by what the shepherd prices it, and what my wallet and fiber stash says. There's a huge list of ways for a shepherd to judge the worth of a particular fleece. I literally can't list them all here. And then a shepherd can price accordingly. That's when it pays to know other farmers selling fleeces or be part of an organization. They may have pricing tips.
But I don't really haggle for fleeces. (My budget is small tho.) I may ask for a combined price/shipping if it's a large purchase. Keeping sheep (or other livestock) is expensive, and I figure that the shepherd will do the work of calculating their costs vs revenue.
If the fleece is inexpensive (I think I got 5.5 lbs of Cormo X in a medium dirty condition for $55 or so) I may buy something else from them.
There are shepherds that list fleeces out of my price range like $120 for 2.5lbs of super clean premium baby suri alpaca. *shrugs* I saw it on etsy.
Yeah, Belgium is like the size of Vermont. So only one state, in a sea of States that are much bigger too. So ''local'' is a much different word than in countries as big as the US. And the internet makes ''local'' even broader. Right now the entirety of the EU is ''local'' because it can be shipped to my door in like two days?
I would absolutely love to get my hands on some Blue Texel, it looks glorious. I'm not sure if there are any breeders in Australia but if I find some I would buy some.
Blue Texel I think not, but someone I know in Australia did get hold of white Texel.
Haha I love to be Niche. I have so many weird Niches. But spinning in tibetan buddhist class in india makes me feel super Niche. Haha. Love your project. Have a great weekend
You are your own niche indeed :D
As an Australian knitter/ dyer and wanna be spinner, we have breeds other than boring old merino! So many people here don't know about them though :( We have Finn sheep and Polworth that I know of at least, and I'm certain there would be others too!!
Merino, making other local breeds unimportant since the 1600s, literally everwhere
There are also border Leicesters and border Leicester/merino crosses. The border Leicester spins into a lovely, almost shiny yarn.
I have never gotten to see (and feel) texel wool. It looks really nice. But one that I have tried is some Zwartbles that a friend in England sent me. I really like that one. If you haven't tried it maybe you could find some of it.
I have! I spun zwartbles during tour de fleece last year and made a sweater for my husband with it 😁
You're worth every penny ❤
Awh 🥺♥️
Thank you for sharing 💖 hearing how happy the fluffiness and softness of the wool made you, made me happier as well. I hope your „utopian“ plan of spreding the local wool love works! Would love to see the lighter colour wool process you mentioned as well 👀 the 250g you showed is that all the wool from one sheep or how much gram would you get from one sheep? I feel like that’s also a calculation point for the discussion topic of "value“, not that I have an answer to it 😅 But I do hope you kept also enough of this amazing yarn for yourself, to value your own contribution. Also you mentioned this sheep was originally bred for the colour, but I‘m having a hard time pickng up on any blue shades at all. Does it have blue shades irl am I just totally misunderstanding the name? 😅
The 250gram was everything that fit my bucket, but maybe like a third of the entire fleece. Blue is a colourvariation of Texel sheep that is mostly grey, but has some blue undertones.
More marketing for local sheps and wool ples ❤
Shep 😍
3:09 you asked why you talk dramatically, and from what i can tell, thats just how dutch/belgian folks are, my dutch family members and family friends also speak with such dramatic flair!
Love from NewZealand!
Dutch even more so than Belgians :D
Is dat een Big Hero kaarder?? Ik heb de Little Hero
De giant, ja.
I adore the first hand spun/hand knit sweater that you were wearing. It’s kind of pumpkin and marigold colored. Did you knit it from a pattern, or something you came up with yourself?
I made it with a 1902 lady's spencer pattern and spindle spun yarn, last week's video is all about it!
After I had already commented (I was in a rush) I glanced at that video and wondered if that was maybe the making of your sweater! I’ll go watch it asap! Thanks so much for your reply! ❤️ I just found you because I love antique French spindles too (and Josefin)! Can’t wait to watch more if you!
After I had already commented (I was in a rush) I glanced at that video and wondered if that was maybe the making of your sweater! I’ll go watch it asap! Thanks so much for your reply! ❤️ I just found you because I love antique French spindles too (and Josefin)! Can’t wait to watch more if you!
After I had already commented (I was in a rush) I glanced at that video and wondered if that was maybe the making of your sweater! I’ll go watch it asap! Thanks so much for your reply! ❤️ I just found you because I love antique French spindles too (and Josefin)! Can’t wait to watch more if you!
After I had already commented (I was in a rush) I glanced at that video and wondered if that was maybe the making of your sweater! I’ll go watch it asap! Thanks so much for your reply! ❤️ I just found you because I love antique French spindles too (and Josefin)! Can’t wait to watch more if you!
Wow I do not understand why…is there not a market there for it? I would love some but little far from Wyoming…not economically feasible…maybe you can start a biz collective coop
Because capitalism? I don't know. Over 90% gets discarded.
@@MijnWolden not sure I understand “capitalism “ comment. 🙃
@@jeanmccullough7737 well, why do efforts to process local wool, which is harder for machines, costs labour, time and water, when you can import wool for a fraction of the cost?
It is beautiful wool. But it looks like a wonderful gray. Is that the camera? My screen?
Why does it gave a "blue" label?
It is just what they call the coloring for their recessive gene pattern. It's basically just grey colors with a blue undertone
Thank you!
@@iceberg232323
Yes, what @iceberg232322 says 😁
First of all, NOOOOO to your ankle! I hope you’re resting and recovering well. Second, I’m so glad you’re enjoying making your batts this way! I wanted to faceplant into the squishy bits that were coming off your carder and now I want to spin a skein of yarn for every shepherd I work with. Thanks so much for the inspiration and for sharing such delicious fiber joy!
If the shepherds are also knitters, they'll be very happy with it :)
Our sheep were raised for there wool 2000$ per sheep is how much it cost us to feed them per year
That sounds like a realistic cost per sheep, thank you for your insight!
I recently found a farm local to me (I live in NZ) that sells amazing carded Corredale fleece - they also sell unprocessed fleece but due to my budget and disability needs I can't process (e.g. scour and card) my own. So - if there are fellow New Zealanders here who would like the name of the wool mill in Fielding let me know & I'll post the name of the place so you can check them out.
How about scour snd card the fre fleece nd sell the batts for 20 euros per batt?
But then... I don't get to spin the batts myself, and that is not a sacrifice I'm willing to make 😅
@@MijnWolden 🤣🤣🤣. I can understand. I like creating colorful batts mo than spinning
I do all sorts of crafting, making etc. I don’t sell my work, because people refuse to pay even a slightly fair price for the work rendered. It’s much easier to buy from China where they have slave labor. I’ve been commissioned to do many projects, only to be stiffed and robbed. You were sweet to spin the yarn!
''but you like doing it, why would I have to pay for it?'' 🙃
trying to find something OTHER than merino, polwarth and corriedale in Australia is a CHORE! i wish i could get some local texel easily.
The fine yarns are more suited for warm weather, as Australia is prone to having. But as a spinner you just want to try it all 😅
@@MijnWolden this is true. However we are also prone to some bitterly cold winters in the southern parts, which is inconveniently where I live.
Local texel probably isn't an option. However I was blown away to find an online store selling swartbles. Let's see if I can find them again.
The Wool Room offers "Merino x Border Leicester Raw Wool Fleece 300g". The Fibre Arts Shed has a wide variety of tops but they have already had quite a bit of preparation done (they have swartbles.)
@@resourcedragon yeah. That's the issue really. I get a lot of combed top from fiber arts shed, but if I want to work from raw fleece the options are limited. I found a fairly local to me finn sheep farm which is nice, anybody living in Victoria Australia wanting a Finn fleece might get lucky with Fairfield Finns. The main trouble is that many sheep breeds in Australia are only kept as meat sheep and their fleeces aren't usually kept from what I've found.
@@charlot-temisery: Back in the day (say the 1970s) obtaining fleeces wasn't so difficult but I was away from spinning for a bit and the situation appears to have changed a lot and not for the better.
Part of that probably gets back to so many small farms not surviving the 1970s, they used to support a family and even some seasonal workers but the larger farms and companies were able to achieve economies of scale and (sometimes using methods that were a long way short of ethical) pushed out the smaller farmers.
There's so many beautiful local fleeces being offered for practically free on marktplaats, curse my shitty small apartment - I /will get some in a few years time i swear!!
Yeah, Marktplaats, facebook marketplace are inundated with them right now (it takes every ounce of self control to not get even more)
What did the sheep mama think of her baby’s yarn?
The yarn is still under way, but I sent her a picture and she was really moved by the reality that she'll be able to knit with yarn from her sheep
Camera doesn't. I am currently working with choclate brown shot through with white guard hairs and it looks the same as what the video shows. I doubt it is, though.
No, there is a bit of Brown, but mostly greys
I knitted with belgian texel and its warm and nice to knit. But it was sooo expensive, its bio supermarket ware so extra expensive, Thats the sad thing, they take the "waste wool" and process it and suddenly sold as luxury item. If you are poor on craft money you have to use the big company chemical and big farm yarns. Sure saving money and then buying is the key but its unfair i think to make local and bio such a hurdle. (and i talk machine processed yarns, not your kind all handwork process)
Yeah that's the thing. And the cheap stuff is imported, more fit to be milled by machines, and our local wool is harder to process, thus more expensive... And it keeps cycling like that. People are used to €1 skeins in Wibra or zeeman, they will not pay €30+ for something local unless they actually care about stuff like that
❤ Love everything about that video! I think you're doing great in being an advocat for local wool and your local sheep 👏... that fleece - love that shade! So colorful in all its darkness. May i ask, did the sheep mention something about having cookies? (😅that joke might be to flat, i'm sorry) I'm always in love with the naturally dark fleeces.
As for the question ... hm, it might be so that there is no such thing as a fair price anymore, once the market and the perception of value (yes, value in and of it self) is as damaged as it is. It might be that the only fairness can be achieved if all participants (e. g. farmer-spinner-knitter) just come to a reasonable agreement, and if communication is as transparent and open-minded as possible. Simply by calculating, the value is just surreal. Mend the smaller picture to get a new bigger picture. And that's why local [...] is so important.
They looked like they had cookies indeed, might be why I'm so deep in this rabbithole 🤭
@@MijnWolden ah yes, i thought so. That is very relatable 😁
Is it next to skin soft?
I hope you don't mind me saying that I think this is a loaded question. Because most of our wool is a medium grade wool, microns 25 and up. So no, the industry and probably a lot of People won't say this is next to skin soft. But that is why our local wools get ignored in favor of exotic fine breeds. But personally, to me it is next to skin soft. And also, does every yarn need to be next to your skin? It can have different purposes as well
@@MijnWolden: I think handspun yarns can be softer than the mill spun ones, so that the wool might well be suitable for going next to the skin.
I am a professional custom chiengora spinner in the USA. I charge $45 per ounce of finished yarn and blend with local Jacob sheep. Spinning with Dog,cat, horse etc . Is challenging. I make no apology for my pricing and will go up $5 in July. At the end of the day, yes it’s expensive but I’m only making minimum wage. The time investment is hard to imagine in our culture of fast fashion.
Oh yes, I've spun some chiengora from our family dog, that is very challenging!
Why talking dramatically? I imagine most lovers of wool and spinning get very elated and happy when cleaning new fleece to spin. ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜
This is the right answer :D
In US dollars, in my local area I could most likely sell 1 fleece like that for between $20.00 to $30.00 dollars. If it is white, a fleece could go for $30-$50(depending on how big and how clean it is) That is to local craftspeople and hobbies on a small scale. Total for the four fleeces raw like you received them would come out to around $80-$100.
I get why white is priced higher (more demand because you can dye), but natural colours.... 😍
That’s so sad :(
But, there are lights coming in the darkness!
I am always so amazed to find out how many sheep it takes to make a certain amount of yardage! I think, especially in USA, we are so used to slave labor, underpaying, undercutting, and mass production, highly mechanized as well, that we really are so out of touch of what something is truly worth, even just intrinsic value! I love your videos and hope you do more like this one too!
I think the enitre "modern" western world is so used to this practice being moved out of their country, and into countries with low wages (almost slave labour indeed) that we got so far removed from it...