Cotswold-A Beauty Of Its Own

As I mentioned in the previous installment, Cotswold is sometimes called poor mans mohair.

Here are some dyed locks of Cotswold. You can choose to dye them yourself, or buy them from a number of on-line sources. These I dyed myself with Easter egg dyes.

I chose three preparations for these locks. Flicked tips only, carded and combed.

Here are the undyed locks with the tips flicked open.

Here is the yarn from the flicked locks. They retained more vegetable matter than I was happy with. But if the locks were cleaner to begin with this is a perfectly lovely way to prepare Cotswold. In fact those dyed locks would look great spun up this way.

Here is the carded Cotswold. I used medium handcards to prepare these.

And here is the yarn spun from it. It’s about the same grist as the yarn spun from the locks, but is more consistent.

And combed Cotswold. For these I used my two row Viking style combs. By far this was the cleanest preparation of the three. Though the carded fiber didn’t have near as much as just the flicked locks.

This stuff spun like butter. I was able to easily spin it finer and more even.

As far as what I would use Cotswold for. Blankets, outerwear and other items not for next to skin wear. Individual fleeces can vary but I would not plan a knitted scarf made of Cotswold if I didn’t have a washed sample of the fiber in hand. Ladies, one “convenient” place to check and see if a wool is good for next to the skin wear is to stick it in your bra and see how it feels after being there a while. A spun and knitted sample is best. Men, you are on your own. I’m not sure I feel qualified to recommend a place for men to check out fibers.

Cotswold is one of those fibers that with planning, preparation and a little whimsy can exceed expectations.  Take it for a spin and see what shows up on your bobbin.

In a moment of weakness I signed up for SOAR 2008.  In reality I will not have near enough vacation time this year to go so I had to cancel my reservation.  I’m sure I made someone on the wait list very happy.  But this way I’ll be able to do more things with Jer and the dogs. 

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