Welcome to the new Spinning Loft website. We are currently undergoing a major renovation, but will soon be live with a full product listing of fleeces, fiber prep equipment, books, and textiles. We promise this will be worth the wait!
In the meantime, here’s a small teaser of what’s to come…
HI,
I want good cheap Merino…is that impossible??
Thanks
Generally speaking merino is one of those fibers that is available cheap or good – asking for both is like saying “I want my 2 buck chuck to be the same quality as a fine wine” – in other words: garbage in, garbage out. Merino should be clean – there’s enough of it out there that good staple and a fleece pretty clean of barnyard is really what you want. That sort of care and cleanliness makes it more expensive for the shepherds (who already are not making a lot of money off fleece; fleece generally augments meat production or dairy production for a shepherd). Merino should be healthy – a quality fleece requires care and good nutrition; good nutrition doesn’t come cheap. Merino are pretty versatile and easily adapted to various climates, but they really need to be sheared regularly or they get wool blind (the wool grows so much they can’t see) or they can’t move. Shearing doesn’t come cheap. Merino are large sheep and they produce large fleeces which are a good 50% grease, depending on what type of merino (there are dozens) the micron count of the fleece can be softer than cashmere. And like cheap cashmere, cheap merino feels coarse and neppy and unpleasant and when you add a 50% reduction in fleece volume now, you have coarse crappy and even less value. Ultimately, I’d say that asking for good quality merino cheap is asking a lot. If you want good quality merino, that will come at a higher price than not so good quality merino.