Lost In Translation

Still scratching my head Hope as to what you thought your DIL actually said?
Surely not classes in how to spin a fleece?

Yes we are having a lot of those 'conversations' at present.
DH is waiting on his ear syringing appointment!

'Spinning' is indoor fixed cycling, Cherrytree59!

Still scratching my head Hope as to what you thought your DIL actually said?
Surely not classes in how to spin a fleece?

Spinning would mean fleeces and a spinning wheel to me too Hopehope!!
I watched a demonstration the other week, very interesting indeed.

I would have thought that if it had been a fabric-spinning class that you'd maybe be able to use any sort of thread you wanted - sheeps' wool, mohair, dog-hair(!) etc.

Alpaca is lovely and soft

I'm not sure if I could wear a dog's hair sweater
Especially if riding an exercise bike.

Ana I understood what Dil meant as in fixed cycling
just didn't understand what Hopes take on it was.
However Jalima's post has enlightened moi
I

Could be a bit...prickly!

But there are definitely people out there who knit stuff from their dogs' moultings. Probably cats' too but you'd need a lot more.

Oops can add to my
When I said 'not a class on spinning a fleece'. I was thinking washing machine. ettv etv

Oh, sorry Cherrytree!

I am now giving up for today

It was very interesting but I probably wouldn't take it up as a hobby - first pick all the bits off the fleece, then wash it (and some of them stretch for several feet!), then you can dye them, then spin on a spinning wheel - be careful not to prick your finger as you could sleep for a hundred years. (I bet the prince didn't know he was kissing an old woman of 116!).

Then knit a garment.

How many jumpers from Big Ben's fleece?
Winner will receive a spinning wheel from Gransnet (just kidding Cari!!)

Jalima....... is that actually a real sheep? Gasp!

I think it must be a feral sheep (New Zealand).
An escapee!

Well, I hope in that case it was caught and sheared! Poor thing.

Yes, I think so

He's what you would call a Woolly Jumper, the one who got away.

Like the Tamworth Two!

I think there are quite a few feral sheep in Australia and New Zealand - I just wonder how they got rid of their fleeces in the wild before they were domesticated.

Perhaps they never did, perhaps they just grew and grew until they were too heavy for the animal to support them and they died.

No, I just looked it up; wild sheep naturally shed their wool annually but some domesticated sheep such as Merino do not so an escapee's fleece will continue to grow.

A lot of wild animals moult in summer. Many farmed sheep still do. The trouble is it's usually bit by bit and rather messy and scraggy-looking. It is the not-moulting that has been selectively bred into some sheep by farmers, presumably so that the fleece could be sheared in one piece.

As you said, jalima.

Even on most "improved" sheep the fleece develops a weakness in the fibre in summer at the point where it would have broken off and moulted when they were unimproved.

In the Borders (and probably elsewhere) ewes with lambs at foot are the last to be sheared, and by the time they reach the shears the fleece has partly rubbed off so that they look very ragged and unkempt.

I think the sheep in the photo is an Australian Corriedale, bred to have extra long thick curly fleece which is very tenacious.

It certainly looks peculiar, it could be anything in there!

The most wool sheared from a sheep in a single shearing is 28.9 kilograms (63 pounds, 11 ounces) taken from a wild New Zealand merino dubbed Big Ben in January last year, the Guinness World Records website said.

Good Lord!