The Fleece That Almost Missed the Mark: Bristol’s Story

In today's video, we're taking a look at a very special fleece from Bristol, one of our UK ewes from an AI breeding we did four years ago. Bristol has a stunning fleece—it's fine, boasts a long staple length, and the crimp and luster are simply dreamy. However, I’ve decided to offer this fleece at a discount. While the quality of the wool itself is lovely, I wasn't entirely happy with how the shearing went. It wasn't the shearer's fault at all; Bristol was likely just about to hit "the rise," which made the process a bit trickier than usual. Join me as I show you a closeup of this beautiful wool so you can see that incredible luster for yourself, and I’ll explain more about what happened on shearing day. I'm skirting fleeces in preparation for my 2026 fleece auction and I am making videos of each fleece skirting session. All the videos can be found with this playlist link:    • Skirting Videos for 2026 Fleece Auction fr...   Watch me skirt and also talk through: An evaluation of her fleece - shearing quality, micron, staple length How I would process and spin it up - would I flick it, drum card it, use it for art yarn My plans for combed top What I am doing with the scraps this year A little bit about Bristol and her story Here is the link to sign up for my mailing list so you get the notification email when the fleeces have been uploaded to the website and the schedule dates for the auction start and finish: https://softshetlandwool.com/pages/ne... Here is the link to a video I made which covers all the important information about our fleeces in case I missed something in this video!    • 2026 Shetland Fleece Skirting Series: Intr...   Thank you so much for watching this video, I hope you like it! #shetlandsheep #fleecekirting #handspinning #whisperingpinesfarm. My Links: Farm website: https://softshetlandwool.com Instagram:   / whisperingpinesshetlandsheep   Facebook:   / softshetlandwool   Ravelry: https://www.ravelry.com/people/Whspri... Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/SoftShetlan... Email: [email protected] Blog: whisperingpinesshetlands.blogspot.com