is for Kemp. Kemp is the coarse part of an animal's coat that is more hair-like and not nice to spin unless you really, really want to make ropy yarns. So it might have its uses. Shetland sheep get kemp in their haunches; Soay sheep have kemp and a really short but very crimpy fiber coat that can be combed off in the spring with their natural molt. That is, if you don't wait too long and find they've rubbed it off on the fences!
With my Shetlands, the kemp was mostly on their legs and back haunches; even though their fleeces were on the small side - being smaller sheep generally - I still skirted the kempiest bits away, as I never found a good way to separate it.
With my Soay, I would catch them once they started rubbing on the fences and could brush their fleeces off. Primitive breeds like Soay have a natural break that occurs in the spring, so it took nothing more than a normal dog comb to remove their fleece. Their kemp was throughout their fleece, so I had some despair initially. Luckily, I found that when I drum carded it that the kemp would fall out as the fiber moved from the licker-in to the main drum! Cleaning up that mess was a small price to pay for getting 95% of the kemp out. The rest I would remove as I spun the single, as it would stick straight out and a simple pluck removed it from the yarn. Over the years, I've found that making that plucking motion along the length of the yarn disturbed the strand less than pulling away from it.
And what did I do with that kemp? I put it in my garden as a slow mulch. I was excited to see "wool pellets" made from mills' wool waste show up at area wool shows, validating my small efforts at recycling the kemp.
Two questions to leave you with:
- Do you have any tips for removing kemp from fleece?
- What is your spinner's K?
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© June 29, 2026 by Ask The Bellwether, posted at http://askthebellwether.com/
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