Last week I wrote about a Gute lamb’s fleece shorn in wind and rain. This week I dig my pondering hands into it and explore its aboutness.
I’m sitting on a of meditation pillow on the floor, picking a Gute lamb’s fleece while listening to a livestream with my favourite writing inspiration Beth Kempton. Two bags are on the floor; one is filled with bundled sections of wool, staples holding on to each other at the cut ends, the other with an airy mass of newly picked individual locks, light and considerably softer. A pile on the floor with mostly kemp and felted parts.
The gifts of a primitive breed
The breed is not new to me, I know its challenges, or perhaps my challenges with it, but I also know its gifts. All the things I learn from exploring it, from handling a primitive breed.
A fleece from a Gute sheep can have coarse outercoat together with the finest undercoat. It also most probably has kemp, those short, rough and quirky fibers that usually break and fall out. They may seem undesirable to us, but they have a purpose for the sheep; to keep the staples open to bring in air for warmth, and upright to keep moisture out.
The combination of fiber types is intriguing and my fingers keep pondering, wandering across the fleece. This lamb’s fleece has very fine outercoat, though, not yet fully formed into the rough structure it can have as an adult. Still, a fleece like this brings me closer to how the fleece on the original sheep was constructed; fine undercoat and coarse hair, albeit in slightly different proportions. The fleece grows to protect the sheep and I get to learn from it.
Pondering hands
I ponder with my hands across the fleece, systematically picking staple by staple. My fingers search for tip ends, curly, fine and silky. The cut ends have compacted slightly and I need to work to make them loosen their grip. Fiddly, but doable, and some of the kemp – located at the bottom of the staples – is separated from the other fibers in the process. I know that more kemp will fall out and result in a soft yield after my picking.
Another gift from handling fleece from a primitive breed like the Gute sheep is that I know I will find gold, one way or another The colours, the fineness and the silky shine. What may look like a rough and bristly fleece is indeed a rough fleece, but it does in also have great potential. It could be turned into a rug, upholstery, a fulled fabric or sturdy socks. But with the fine undercoat and not yet adult outercoat in this fleece I could also make something very soft. A lace shawl perhaps. Yes, this prickly-looking fleece could actually be wrapped around my shoulders in an openwork pattern, flaunting the beauty in the simple fibers.
Further exploration
I tease a few locks and am astonished at how easily the kemp separates from the rest of the fibers. What remains in front of me are silky soft and remarkably fine fibers.
Look at the picture with three sections of wool in The gifts of a primitive breed above. In the center you see a whole staple. The light wool to the right is a similar staple that I have teased with a few strokes with a flicker. Almost all of the kemp is gone. You can see the flicked out black and white kemp to the left of the whole staple.
I carded the teased wool and spun it on a 9 gram double cross (Turkish style) spindle into a laceweight yarn. There is definitely kemp left in the yarn, but given how much has fallen out already, I trust the remaining kemp will fall out eventually. And if it doesn’t I will be humbly reminded of the fleece as a protection for a living being, that I am grateful to learn from.
This and other things is what my fingers reflect over as they walk their way through the hills and valleys of Gute lamb’s fleece number 8 on a Thursday morning, and later ponder further on the page, writing the experience down, joyfully.
What do your hands ponder about when they walk through a fleece?
Happy spinning!
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