It's pretty standard practice to buy and work with fleece from ewes: it's usually softer and there are more girls out there than boys! But I just realized that my studio is brimming with awesome male (some rams, some wethers) fleeces, and they need to be celebrated!
First off are the mohair locks that I recently purchased from The Critter Ranch. Her angora (and a cute little pygora) boys are wonderfully soft. If you want to meet the guys, she's blogged about them today as well. Sue is also a personal friend that I've sucked into Fiber Arts Friday!
This is Gus:
And Woodrow:
Them playing together well:
And Gus in a rich, purple batt that will be a layer of my soon-to-be unveiled Inara batt (again, part of Nerd Wars on Ravelry!).
The mohair locks were originally purchased so that I could make some tailspun yarn to put up in the shop, but I'm having a lot of fun playing with them in so many ways, I may need to get more from Sue!
And here's "Willie", a Bluefaced Leicester Ram. This is his first clip, so it's shorter than most BFL and finer. The crimp is to die for!
I'm thinking he may need to be core spun, too!
In other news, I have my core spinning tutorial filmed, and I'm just waiting for my husband to do some editing before posting it tonight. It features my Phat Fiber samples for January, but anyone with some locks and roving can spin along with it. (Hmmm . . . just realized, the locks in the video are from a Lincoln Longwool sheep named "Willie" as well. Gotta love them boys!)
Head over to Wonder Why for more Fibery fun this Friday!