Hmm I started to draft this post on the 4th January! The decluttering and trying to clear some longer term spinning projects has gotten in the way of starting this project earlier, but here’s where I have got to so far.

1. Beltex (raw fleece)
2. Bluefaced Leicester (commercial top)
3. Boreray (fleece)
4. Castlemilk Moorit (raw fleece)
5. Cheviot (commercial top)
6. Coopworth (clean top)
7. Corriedale (commercial top)
8. Dorset Horn (commercial top)
9. Gotland (commercial top)
10. Herdwick (commercial top)
11. Icelandic (commercial top)
12. Jacobs (carded in the grease)
13. Manx Loaghtan (commercial top)
14. Masham (commercial top)
15. Norweigan (Grey) (commercial top)
16. Polwarth (commercial top)
17. Romney (fleece)
18. Shetland (commercial top)
19. Soay (raw fleece)
20. Suffolk (raw fleece)
21. Teeswater (commercial top)
22. Texel (Blue) (raw fleece)
23. Texel (White) (commercial top)
24. Wensleydale Longwool (commercial top)
25. Zwartbles (raw fleece)

Also I may have some North Ronaldsay fibre, but there’s a chance I dyed it for my lampshades. I haven’t decided if I will add merino to the project.

9 of the fibres need washing &/or combing/carding. Given I also have a whole fleece of a Shetland cross that I need to wash and prepare I think that only 9 needing preparation is a relief.

Already just from having a squish of the different wool fibres in my hand you can already tell some quite significant differences in the textures of the fibres.

What I will make is undecided at the moment. I am toying around with a number of different options of what to make once it is all spun up:-

1. Knit squares for a blanket (either all the same pattern or different patterns)
2. Crochet squares for a blanket (either all the same pattern or different patterns)
3. Spin it and then weave a striped rug on my rigid heddle loom
4. Spin it and then weave a wall hanging on my rigid heddle loom
5. Use a pin loom (I don’t own one at the moment) and weave squares for a blanket
6. Make a blanket with a mixture of knit, crochet and woven squares.
7. Oh another option is to felt some in square shapes?!

My hesitation is that I start knitting or crocheting squares only to find that I don’t have enough length for them to all be the same size. But perhaps that doesn’t matter, perhaps it could be a patchwork of different shapes. Hmmm decisions decisions.

I have quite a lot of corriedale in my stash, so I could use that as a way of sampling how much yarn I would get and what sized square that would crochet or knit into. Because they are all undyed I was thinking that maybe a wall hanging may look lovely though as I could almost make a muted colours landscape, or perhaps some geometric patterns! Oh decisions decisions!!!

In the meantime, I will get on with washing and carding or combing the fleeces that need preparation. Plus I want to keep good records of what I’m doing to prepare each fibre and their qualities.

Feel free to add another suggestion or to select your preference from my list of current ideas. 🙂