I took the fleece out into the garden and spread it out, then armed with a clean bucket and a chair (appropriately patriotic for this week, but that was not intentional!) got to work.
The fleece was pulled into handfulls then the locks pulled out from each handful. A lock of sheep fleece looks like this:
It is a clump, usually stuck together at the top end and fluffier at the butt end which comes from closest to the body (it really is called that).
With this fleece I was really brutal, anything dirty or weak got put in the scrap pile. In the end that was probably about two thirds of the fleece, but I have other non spinning plans for that.
The next step will be to wash the locks to remove the dirt and grease, pictures of that to come soon.
