You've chosen or designed a project and know the size of the yarn needed and the total yardage of yarn needed to make the project. You know what fiber you want to use and have chosen between starting with commercially prepared fibers or starting with raw fibers. But how much grease fleece or fiber will we need?
If you are starting with raw fleece, there is an easy way to figure this out. It does take a bit of math and some sampling but it's well worth taking the time to sample and compute the amount needed to avoid running out of yarn before the project is finished. The mathematical formulas for figuring grease fleece needs is given here: (How Much Fiber Do I need?)
If you are starting with commercially prepared fibers, then all you need to do is find the total weight of the yarn needed. Look up the number and weight of the skeins called for in your pattern and multiply weight X number of skeins. This will give you a ball park figure – but remember that handspun is often denser than it's commercial equivalent and that yardage is the most important factor. The best thing to do is to spin a sample skein, wet finish it, measure the yardage, measure the yardage and use the sample skein for figuring your total fiber needs.
The length of a skein can easily be measured by counting wraps on a niddy noddy or reeling device or by running the yarn through a counter while winding it into a ball. Fishing line counters work well for measuring yarn length on all but bulky, hairy, or novelty yarns.
If you are starting with a grease fleece, there are a few other things to consider when figuring how much raw fleece to buy. Fleeces are not of uniform quality throughout and, since processing spinning does take time and effort, we want to select the best parts of the fleece for our project(s). Let's take a few minutes to look at a sheep with an eye to which parts of the fleece are the nicest.
1.Shoulder. Long staple fine wool. This is the best fleece.
2.Neck: Also long staple and fine but it can be matted.
3.Back. Long staple and of average fineness. It may be weather damaged.
4.Side. Long staple and of average fineness. This is the main type of fleece found on a sheep.
5.Tags. Long staple but coarse and most likely dirty or stained.
6.Britch. Long staple but coarser than average. Fibers found in this area may be medullated (hollow).
7.Belly wool. Short but fine. Most often matted and contaminated with VM and dirt.
Other fleece parts, not numbered on the diagram are: The head wool which is the top knot, cheek, and jowl wool. This part of the fleece plus the leg wool, the tail wool, the tags, and the crutch wool (wool from under the tail area, are most often left on the skirting room floor along with the belly wool.
The grade of the fleece (Bradford or Micron Count) of the fleece also changes depending on which area of the sheep it comes from. An explanation of wool count systems and how they relate to each other can be found here: (Wool Count Systems)
The following diagrams show where the finest and coarsest types of fleece are found on the different types of sheep.
