Description

Drum carded for hand spinners or felt makers, British Shetland fleece from  ‘Ethel’ the matriarch of our own small organic flock of much loved Shetland and Shetland x Gotland sheep, who are conservation grazers for our community orchards and biodiverse chalk grassland. Ethel has a beautiful soft and long staple, variable light / mid grey fleece with a medium amount of crimp, we consider her fleece one of the best in the flock, so have specifically chosen it to dye and drum card for hand spinners.
We blade shear each of our sheep by hand (which allows us to wait until the fleece is ready), the fleeces are then carefully sorted (plant matter removed) and lower grade wool separated for use as packing material. Each fleece is carefully sorted and hand picked over, then gently but thoroughly washed in well water and eco-friendly wool scour and dried in the fresh air and then either kept as the natural fleece colour or naturally dyed by us at our small outside dye house in Oxfordshire, using well water and plant dyes, many of which are grown or gathered by us in a sustainable way from the organic Estate on which we are based. When we do use imported dyes we source these directly, or from a company with a strong ethical sourcing policy.
After dyeing the fleeces are picked over a second time and then either packed for felt makers or drum carded by hand ready for spinning.
We have a policy of buying no new packaging material for use in posting out parcels, we re-use old packaging gathered from other local businesses, individuals and schools. We hope you will enjoy receiving your parcel, whatever shape and size it is, knowing that it has a little less impact on the environment.