 I bought a beautiful fleece from a Texel sheep at the petting zoo. It's enough for a sweater. Quite a challenge. It's a lot of work to go from a fleece to a knitted sweater in the end. |
 The wool is first sorted out. I throw away any dirty and poor-quality pieces of wool. Unfortunately, I can't use those. But there's still plenty left, really. |
 I wash the wool in warm water with a generous amount of dish soap I repeat this process a few times, and once the wool is clean, I rinse it thoroughly to ensure all the soap is gone. |
 Then the wool can dry outside in the fresh air. The weather is nice, so it dries quite quickly. |
 When the wool is fully dry, I weigh out quantities of about 50 grams each. That's what fits on my carding mill. It looks like quite a bit in a tub like this. |
| You can card wool directly from washed, and even unwashed, fleece. However, it's challenging to get a nice, even yarn that way. I card the wool first using a carding mill. |
 When the drum is completely full of wool, I take it off. It holds about 50-60 grams at a time. I twist the wool into a sort of knot so that I can store it easily. |
 In the end, I have a big bag full, with 17 skeins of wool, totaling over 900 grams. That should be enough for a sweater. I put a nicely scented piece of soap in the bag with the wool to keep the moths away. |
 When I want to spin the wool again, I first unroll the skein of wool and fluff it up again. |
 When the wool is a bit fluffier, I pull zigzag strips from it. When pulling the strips, you need to stop just before reaching the end, so the strips form a cohesive whole. |
 After doing this, carefully pull the zigzag of wool at the corners to form a straight strip. The wool may not extend all the way there, but that's okay. |
| You now have a nice long strip of wool that is easy to spin. |
 I spin the long roving on my spinning wheel. About 50 grams goes on one bobbin, which is convenient because that's approximately what one skein of wool contains. |
 A full bobbin of wool already looks beautiful. But the wool is only twisted at this point, so it's a single ply. A single ply is more delicate, and I want my wool to be sturdier, so I'm going to ply the yarn as well.. |
 I ply three strands at a time, which is called a 3-ply. That creates a nice round, sturdy, and even yarn. |
  The final yarn has turned out beautifully. Its thickness is approximately 12-15 wraps per inch (WPI). That's useful to know because it gives me an idea of which needle size will work best for knitting. |
| In the end, I have over 900 grams of wool with a total yardage of about 2100 meters. That should be more than enough for a sweater. But that's a different project. This one is done. |