Fleece to Frock - Black Welsh Mountain sheep raw fleece to 14th century surcoat

Author's note: This is the tale of my project to make a 14th century surcoat starting with a raw sheep fleece. This was a very long project, and it even sat unworked for a few years. I hope in the future to post these projects in installments while they are in process in the future. Since this is my most important project right now, I am posting everything I have done up to this point. My research for this project will be posted at a later date (like after I figure out what is the best way to post it to this blog). I started this project not really knowing what I was doing and I learned a lot in the process. I purposely used some modern prep in the making of this dress. It was a conscious decision to do so for one reason or another. I have noted it all in my research but not here in this blog post. I welcome your comments and insights if you have done a similar project or if you have some researched information you would like to share. But please be nice :)

I learned to spin at Pennsic 34 (in 2005 for you mundanes). It was not long after that I, like so many new spinners who had come before me, had the bright idea of making a medieval dress from start to finish. Raw sheep fleece to finished dress. I knew that was going to be far in my future especially since I had no immediate plans to start weaving.

 Fast forward to 2011 and the release of the Fleece and Fiber source book. That year all it was all the rage to do a breed study along with the book. I started one too, but I wanted to go a step further and do a Medieval breed study. Here was the start of my research. Along with the book and breed sampler that I got from the Spinning Loft I also got the companion video with Deb Robson. When she got to the Black Welsh Mountain sheep I new instantly that I wanted to make my first fleece to frock out of that wool. Of course it was a rare breed and REALLY rare in North America , but luckily I was able to find a fleece in June (a few months after sheering season) on Etsy at Blue Shepard Farms. I was on my way!!!!

Picture: Black Welsh Mountain sheep

I was super excited to get started. But I had some time to think about how I would go about it. I decided in order to finish the spinning in a "reasonable" amount of time I would spin on my spinning wheel and not my drop spindle. The fiber length was pretty short, so I had to card it. I didn't own a loom but as the cleaning, carding and spinning was going to take a while I had time to deal with how I would weave it. I don't think I originally planned on it being an A and S submission and I had only done casual research on medieval spinning up to this point.

When the fiber arrived it was very dirty, as raw fleeces often are. It was in better shape than I had hoped but I had not been trained in buying and sorting raw fleeces so I just started washing it all. ( I have learned my lesson!!).

picture of fleece the day it arrived.

 

Washing the Fleece

I used Unicorn Scour Power to wash my fleece. I put the recommended amount of soap in a bin of almost boiling hot water. I then placed as much fleece as I could get in a mesh bag without stuffing it and placed that in the soapy water. I let it sit for the recommended amount of time ( I think it is 15 minutes ), then I poured out the very dirty water and bag of fleece into the tub, refilled the bin with hot water approximately the same temp that was just dumped ( I used my best guess, not a thermometer) then added another dose of scour power (again using the recommendations on the back of the bottle) and let soak again. Dumped water and did a couple of soakings with just water and no soap. I could have used a few more soap dips because I didn't get all the grease out of the fleece, but I got the dirt out. I wound up not minding the grease and that all came out in the fulling (see below).

 

Picture: dirty fleece in the mesh bag. It was washed in a Rubbermaid bin in our bathtub.

 

Drying the fleece

When I took the mesh bag out of the tub after its last rinse it took a ride in our washing machine on the spin cycle. This helped to get a lot of the water out. I then put the fleece on these stackable sweater drying racks I got at a linens and things (remember them?) I had to keep and eye on them to make sure the squirrels didn't try and steal my wool while it was drying (it happens, google it). It turned the fleece over periodically while it was in the sun and if I remember correctly it took a few hours for each rack of fleece to dry. The whole washing and drying process took about 3 days.

 

Picture: mostly clean fleece sitting in the sun to dry. You can see all the hay and grass that was in the fleece.

 

Carding the cleaned wool

 I got out my trusty Schacht wool carders and carded up a basket of rolags. To keep my wrists from getting to fatigued an in order to keep from getting really bored I usually card up a basket at a time. Spin that up, then card up another basket. The first basket of rolags really wound up being a sample skein of yarn, because after it was plied I decided it was to thick a yarn to be used for this purpose. It is now part of the samples I bring with me when I demo this project so people can handle the finished 2 ply yarn.

Picture: Basket with all cleaned wool in it with my hand carders on top.

Picture: filling the card with locks.

I recently learned the technique of teasing the locks apart with my hands before I put them on the cards. It helps to separate the fibers so it is less carding to be done, it helps to get some more of the dirt and veggie matter out of the wool locks and it helps to separate out the fibers that are too short .See the little fiber clump in the bottom right of the carder in the above picture? That is from a second cut done when shearing the fleece. That is way to short to be spun and just makes a little lump in the spun single. Guess how I know that?

 

Picture: carding away in my favorite spot on the floor in front of the TV.

Picture: after a few passes with the cards I remove the carded fiber and put it on the opposite card and repeat until it is carded to my satisfaction.

Picture: Good enough for me. Time to make a rolag.

 

I don't do anything special when I make a rolag. I just losen the fiber from the card and then roll with my hands to make a tube. Some people use a pencil or dowel in the center to make a really tight rolag, but since I had a lot of veggie matter and 2nd cuts in these that I had to pick out as I drafted ( I will definitely sort the next fleece better) I didn't bother making a tight rolag.

 

Picture: my basket of rolags ready to be spun.

 

As I look at this picture I realize just how much junk I allowed through in my original rolags. Originally I didn't want to throw out ANY of the fleece I paid good money for, but now I realize that it makes for crappy yarn. There was a 2 year gap between the spinning of the first basket of rolags and the second basket so the final yarn looks much better than my first sampler does. My next fleece to frock will be a much better quality as well. My total hours spent carding was approximately 21 hours. I just finished carding the last batch of raw wool into rolags this week so I hoping that I can actually meet my deadline of having the dress finished for this Pennsic.
 

Spinning wool into yarn
This is by far the most time consuming part of the process. I am spinning on my Schacht Lady Bug wheel using the same backwards draw I would use on a drop spindle. I have also spun some of the wool up on a drop spindle so that I can compare both ways of spinning in my demo material. Other than the fact that I spin a little better on the drop spindle (I have more experience with the drop spindle) it is hard to tell what is what. I also spun on each for an hour in order to get my yards/hour ratio. I am keeping track of all the hours spent on this dress so that I can charge a labor rate and put a price tag on the dress just to compare it to modern clothing prices. I calculated my spinning mileage to be 46 yards/hour on the drop spindle and 70 yards per hour on the wheel. I can use this to calculate how long it would have taken me to do the same yardage all on the drop spindle. So far I have spent 46.5 hours spinning.  Just like the carding I like to mix it up when I spin, so I fill all three of my smaller bobins with singles then I put on my bulky flyer for plying. I don't have to do it this way but I like having the larger skein of plied yarn that the bulky bobbins allow me to have. I have been spinning all the singles Z (clockwise) and have been plying S (counterclockwise). Something I would like to try in the future is playing around with Z and S spinning and the difference it makes in the final weave. I saw a lovely presentation of this at Kings and Queens Arts and Science champions this past year in Dragonship Haven. It was really amazing work.
I have one basket of rolags left to spin then ply it all up, set them and then on to weaving!!!

Picture: My ladybug wheel. The bobbin on the upper right of the lazy kate is textured yarn for another project.

Picture: Singles on the bobbin

Picture: The original sampler yarn that was too thick, but still very nice.

Picture: Spinning up some singles on the ladybug wheel

 

 

 

 

Weaving the finished yarn

I haven't gotten to the point of weaving the finished fabric, but I did do a bunch of samples. In the course of my research I have decided to full (or felt) the final surcoat. I have read some of the ways they did this medieval and I think a more modern way of fulling (felling) the final fabric will suit me better.

I did a lot of thinking about what loom to get. I knew that most of my weaving would be for medieval projects so I didn't mind getting something simple. My biggest consideration was space, we just don't have much space at all so I decided to go with a rigid heddle loom that could fold up. I liked the Schacht flip loom because my project could stay on it if it was folded and I absolutely LOVE my Ladybug wheel and I was guessing the same quality standards would apply to their looms as well. I was right. I purchased the 20 inch width loom because I figure if I am making fabric for garb or cloaks it would be useful to have the wider width available. I also like that I can also add another heddle if I want to give me more weaving possibilities. But not right now, I am still in the very beginning stages. I don't even have a warping board yet, so my decision to make this all one color warp was an easy one :).

 I wove a 5 inch wide band on my rigid heddle loom and wove enough in length to get 3 square samples and one slightly longer one. I decided to keep it simple and used the exact same warp as weft and just using one heddle gives me an even, or balance weave fabric or "Tabby" weave. The Sett is 9epi and 9ppi ( 9 warps strings per inch and 9 weft strings per inch).

 

I plan to show more detailed pictures of the tools and procedures that I use to obtain the finished fabric. Those will happen as I go along with the project. I won't do any more weaving till all the spinning is done, because I am not entirely sure how much yardage I will have. I still don't know how long this surcoat will be.

Picture: My loom all warped up and ready to go.

 

Picture: The first couple of inches of weaving. Hard to see in this light.

Picture: Sample #1 this is a 5 inch by 5 inch piece of woven fabric. I soaked it in warm water with a little bit of soap. Then rinsed it and layed flat to dry. Nothing else was done to this fabric so that I could demo what the initial fabric looks like right off the loom.

 

 

Picture: Sample #2 I took a 5 inch by 5 inch sample from the original piece and hand sewed the edges. Then I felled (of felted) by scrubbing it and alternating it between a bucket of very hot soapy water (the soap was dish liquid) and a bucket of cold water. I did this for about 15 minutes until it shrunk and gave me a fuzzy appearance (this also makes the fabric a little water repellant, a nice plus). The final sample is 4.5 inches by 4.5 inches.

Picture: Sample #3 in researching I discovered that they would stretch out the fabric after fellling to try and regain some of the width and length lost in the process. I was surprised that I was able to easily stretch the fabric with T-pins on a blocking mat used for blocking knitted items. The final sample size is 5 inches by 5 inches so I was able to regain everything I lost in the felling.

Picture: Sample #4 I wanted to simulate "teasling". This is were they use the teasle plant which is very prickly. They would brush the fabric with them to raise the nap then shear it so that it was not fuzzy. This makes for a thinner and softer finished fabric. Having no idea where to get teasles and thinking I would be picking bits of them out of the fabric after brushing it anyway I decided to use a plastic bristled hairbrush. I cut back the nap using a pair of applique scissors. I was not sure if I would do this process on the final fabric for the dress, but the results on the sample are stunning. Black Welsh Mountain sheep is an itchy wool and not meant to be worn next to the skin (hence the surcoat and not the dress). After raising and shearing the nap the fabric is noticeably softer and has a much nicer drape. I can only imagine how laborious it will be to do on the final yards of fabric, but the outcome might just be worth it.

 

Thanks for sticking with this post to the end. From here on the posts on this project will be smaller as I will be updating as I go along. I hope I can keep up my momentum and have it all done to show at the A & S display at Pennsic this year. I have never shown anything in an A & S anything so I am more than a little nervous!!!!