Spinning Wool

Natural Coloured Fleece and Fiber

Cotswold (white)

Cotswold (medium brown)

Jacob (dark brown)

Navajo-Churro (medium brown)

Icelandic (grey)

Corriedale (white)

Corriedale (striped grey and white)

Border Leicester (medium brown)

Coopworth (white)

Blue-Faced Leicester (white)

Romney (white)

Romney (medium brown)

English Leicester (white)

Wensleydale (white)
Lincoln Longwool (white)

Alpaca (white and medium grey blend)

Alpaca (brown)

The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook is an excellent guide.  I still have more to read, but as you can see, I am off to a pretty good start building my collection, focusing mainly on medium to long wool's and irresistible Alpaca.

With still a pound of English Leicester to wash, I do love the process of cleaning and preparing raw fleece.   One day, I would like to try making my own natural dyes from plants. Harvesting Color, a book by Rebecca Burgess makes it sound so easy, but finding the right plants is a little more difficult.

As I learn to spin on a Drop Spindle, I have become curious about other types of spindles.  The Tibetan Spindle and Russian Spindle are both support spindles, meaning they spin in a bowl, not hanging from the air like a drop spindle.  

The Tibetan holds more fiber and spins longer than a Russian, but a Russian spins faster and is easier to carry.  Support spindles are traditionally used to spin fine yarn from short fibers, but that does not mean you cannot spin a heavier yarn or use long wool.  

The French Spindle, looks like a Russian Spindle, but used without a support bowl; you just hold it in your hand. It sometimes has a groove running down the shaft to guide the fiber.  

Another interesting spindle is the Turkish Spindle, which is a drop spindle that makes a center-pull ball as you spin your fiber.

Time now for a little drop spindle spinning, 

on this sunny Sunday afternoon.

Update: July 30, 2014  Just came across another interesting spindle, the Akha Spindle, from northern Thailand.