Skirting a Fleece - Twin Willows Farm

I love the title of this article. Can’t you just see the faces of people who are not spinners or shepherds trying to figure this one out?! Here at Bella Online the new articles are advertised all over the site. Considering how many different meanings “skirt” and “fleece” have… I could really be confusing people with this one!

In the fiber arts world, skirting a fleece refers to removing all the undesirable parts of the fleece before packaging it up for use or sale. This can be done at shearing time or later. There are some pros and cons to each.

Skirting at shearing:
1)   The dirty parts are removed quickly and not bundled up with the clean parts of the fleece, preventing any contamination and staining.

2)   The fleece is already spread out so is easy see and pick through.

3)   Skirting outside in the barn keeps the mess outside in the barn.

Skirting later:
1)   One has the ability to lay the fleece out in a well lighted area to work.

2)   Shearing is tiring, skirting later allows a fresh perspective. And a rested back!

3)   Not all barns have a clean area to work in.

No matter when you skirt the fleece, whether you’ve sheared it yourself or purchased an unskirted fleece, you’ll want to follow these basic guidelines:

1)   Remove all the “tags”, the wool that is heavily soiled with manure, usually just around the tail area.
2)   Remove any belly, face and leg wool. This is short wool. If it is clean and free of VM (vegetable matter) you can save it separately for use in felting or even spinning if it’s long enough. But it will be considerably shorter than the bulk of the fleece and have a different texture. This should not be mixed with the rest of the fleece to avoid having an inconsistent roving.
3)   Remove any britch wool. Britch wool is the wool that grows on the hind legs up into the rump (and occasionally on the front legs up into the shoulder). The britch is straighter, often longer, coarser in diameter and usually more brittle in texture. The britch can be saved and set apart to be used for felting or spinning by itself. Britch wool makes very hard wearing wool for work socks, gloves and other hard wearing items.
4)   Remove any areas that are heavily contaminated with VM. This is the hard part! The worse areas for VM contamination are the neck and shoulders. Guess where the best part of the fleece is found? Yup! On the neck and shoulders. However, even the nicest wool is no fun to spin if you have to stop every 6” and pick out VM.
5)   Remove all the second cuts you can find. Second cuts occur when the shears are not kept close to the sheep’s skin and leave a tall stubble behind. On the next sweep of the shears, this stubble is cut off, leaving a short bit of fleece or “second cut”. These second cuts will become noils and neps that need to be removed as the fiber is spun. (Second cuts do not make very nice novelty yarn like silk noils do. Second cuts usually wind up as pilling on the garment. Nobody likes that!) Even the very best shearer will have a few second cuts. If you’re finding a lot of them, however, you may want to find another shearer.

Don’t be afraid to jump in and buy a fleece “right off the sheep.” Skirting is not difficult and you’ll learn a lot about fleece by getting your hands in the middle of a nice, fresh fleece. And, oh, what the lanolin will do for your hands!

Twin Willows Farm - How to Skirt a Fleece