I've bought a Clun Forest Mule Fleece

I couldn't resist.  I saw the photos of this fleece and the high praise of fellow spinners for this ladies fleece and I thought, yeah, why not?  Its beautiful and weighed 2.2kg and I got straight on to cleaning it the day after it arrived.  Very clean fleece in terms of no vegetable matter or other rubbish, no dust, no dirt, no soil or sand fell out as I pulled it apart and I've never had that happen, I am usually sweeping up little mounds of soil and fine sandy grit type of material when I pull a fleece apart but not with this one.  Its got good crimp and so some locks needed a bit of extra cleaning on the tips but overall most of it is decent length staple and reasonably soft.

A Clun Forest Mule is basically a cross breed produced from a Clun Forest and Bluefaced Leicester mating.  I have never spun Clun Forest before and the Bluefaced Leicester I have only ever spun as part of a blend or another Mule Fleece, way back in 2013.

The Clun Forest sheep is a conservation breed, there aren't great numbers of these around.  According to my fleece bible, that I go to for good information about a breed, the fleece is uniform quality all over, which I can say is true, there were no obvious rough bits.  This fibre can take quite a lot of wear, its quite hardy in that respect and it has plenty of loft and bounce so will be good for things like everyday shawls, mittens, hats, jumpers.  It takes dye really well.

The Bluefaced Leiceter sheep is part of the English Longwool breeds of sheep that produces a fine, silky, lustrous long fibre.  Not usually scratchy but is durable enough to withstand a lot of wear and takes dyes really well.  This is one of the hand spinners favourite breeds as it is so versatile.

So, combine the traits of those two sheep breeds together and we have something that could be pretty wonderful.  This came from Dunja Roberts of All In A Spin, who is based in Cwmdu, Crickhowell, Wales, which according to Google Maps, is pretty much in the middle of nowhere.

The photo on the right shows it rolled out but not opened out, it was certainly long.

Before and after washing.  Although it was a "clean" fleece, it was still dirty in terms of colouration.  Its washed up beautifully.