From Animal to Spun Yarn - The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook

This is a beautiful book. The photography, both of the animals and the fiber, is spectacular. The information is so clearly presented, you can almost smell the sheep and feel the lanolin on your fingers. The authors' passion shines through on every page.
As a knitter and spinner, I love that the authors honor the usefulness of the full range of animal fibers, not just those that are "soft", and not just those that are commercially abundant. This book sent me to my computer to search out rare breed wools the way I'd search for different varieties of tomato at the farmer's market, wanting to taste the full spectrum of possibilities.
The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook works on many levels. As "wool porn", it is a pleasure to dip into at random. As a reference, it provides a starting point when approaching a fiber that is new to me.
I've read this book cover-to-cover, and I have no doubt I'll refer to it again and again.

I love this book. The authors know their material inside and out. They have written it up in such a warm and communicative style that I not only trust the information I am seeking but enjoy reading the text.

I carried this book with me to the Maryland sheep and wool show. It helped me identify what I was looking at and how to choose a fleece for spinning. This book is a great resource for spinners and fiber enthusiasts.

I carried this book with me to the Maryland sheep and wool show. It helped me identify what I was looking at and how to choose a fleece for spinning. This book is a great resource for spinners and fiber enthusiasts.

I've learned a lot from the book. Very informative, great pictures, and easy to use. Recommend for all beginners. I'm a felter and have found it helpful for determining which fibers I can use for felting.

This is a truly awesome book. The authors have done a very complete job of organizing and creating this wonderful piece. It is informative, well organized, easy to read and easy to use for reference. The photos are wonderful. Thanks to the authors for doing a great job! I Love This Book.

This book is perfection! As a spinner, I can safely say after years of raiding my library, this is the most exhaustive resource on animal fibers that I've found yet. The photos are gorgeous, and the info is very comprehensive.

I hestiated to purchase this book, since I have several other spinning and fiber books...Friends who had already purchased it were raving about it...and so I bought it...It is all they said and much more, a heavy tomb that really has everything a spinner could ask for on information as to how to process and spin any breed you will encounter, and so many more. Buy it now, its a bargain at twice the price.

This book is awesome!! I would think this book would sell for $50.00 with all of the information and photos it has in it. Do not give it a second thought. I have been spinning for over 33 years and am reading this like a novel. Excellent job!!! Have recommended it to many friends. thanks

This book is incredibly thorough in its exploration of a myriad of different spinnable breeds. Not only does it cover the hundreds of different sheep breeds, but also has information on paco-vicuna and cashmere! If there is a breed in the world, you can bet Deb Robson and Carol Ekarius have tried to spin it!

Deserves a place on every spinner's/knitter's/crocheter's library shelf.

Since I'm writing a sheep book (The Backyard Sheep) for Storey Publishing, Storey graciously sent me a PDF of the sheep section of The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook. It's so beyond fantastic that I don't know what to say except WOW.

The British Wool Board's British Sheep and Wool was my wish book until now, but this book goes way, way, way beyond that. The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook is 448 lavishly color-illustrated pages simply jam-packed with information. Every breed of sheep you can possibly think of (and more) is covered, along with goats, rabbits, horses, camelids, bison, yaks, musk oxen, dogs and cats, and even wild animals such as wolves.

Each breed section incorporates wonderful color pictures of the breed in question, of raw and washed staples of its wool (in several colors, where applicable), and of several types of yarn spun from its fiber along with information about the tools used in its creation. Breed sections range from two to ten pages; Shetland people, you are going to love the Shetland section!

As I write this I'm reviewing the three-page section about Rough Fells, a breed I would keep if they were available in North America. Material includes a comprehensive description of Rough Fells illustrated by a gorgeous picture of a group of five sheep (love those guys!), a big color picture of Rough Fell staples and yarn, and a page with "Rough Fell Facts" (fleece weight, staple length, fiber diameter, lock characteristics, and natural colors) along with a half page write-up on "Using Rough Fell Fiber" including dying, fiber preparation and spinning tips, and knitting, crocheting, and weaving.

And, a photo I took of Lori Olson's ram (Lori is my friend and partner-in-sheep), Shepherd's Croft Oran, illustrates the Brecknock Hill and American Miniature Cheviot pages. The Miniature Cheviot write-up is right on!

Carol Ekarius and Deborah Robson know their sheep. They have written an absolutely must-have volume not only for fiber enthusiasts but sheep fanciers everywhere. Well done, ladies! I can hardly wait to own a copy of this book.

The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook is a beautifully photographed, extensively researched, well written book that will tell you everything you want to know about different breeds of sheep & other assorted animals. It gives a history of the various breeds and plus excellent tips on how to process and spin the fiber. It's got photos of singles and swatches. For a spinner, this is a must-have book.

The other thing that makes this book incredibly valuable is that it includes information about commonly available fibers as well as rare breeds. As a spinner, I'm an advocate of preserving rare/heritage breeds. Once a breed is lost, it's gone forever. The information on rare breeds is worth the price of the book alone.

But...

I'm on my own spinning journey. I'm temporarily shelving the Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook because I want to make fiber discoveries on my own--I don't want it spoonfed to me. This book is so thorough, so comprehensive, it momentarily killed my spinning mojo. It's like I wouldn't need to explore and spin the different breeds on my own because this book already told me everything I'd ever hoped to discover. Still, it will be a valuable reference for solving fiber prep and spinning problems, and a springboard for learning about breeds I'm not familiar with.

All in all, if you're a spinner, you need this book. If you think sheep are beautiful, you want this book. It will turn you on to breeds you didn't even know about and help you solve stubborn spinning questions like "to card or not to card." Also consider checking out Deb's DVD Handspinning Rare Wools: How to Spin Them, Why We Should Care. Her enthusiasm for rare breeds is totally charming and kicked my spinning mojo into overdrive.

This needs to be on my bookshelves...I borrowed it brand-new from our local public library. It's fascinating. Even my 13-year-old son picked it up and said, "Hey, this is interesting...I thought it was just about yarn, but it's about sheep, too." I love the up-close colour photographs of locks of wool (raw and cleaned, side-by-side) from the different kinds of fiber animals, along with tiny samples of spinning, knitting and weaving of each fiber type. They even included dog hair, which is what I'm currently spinning, along with the more customary sheep's wool and the hair of many other kinds of animals such as goats, camels, yaks and musk oxen.

I went to Maryland Sheep and Wool Afterparty to the release of this book. I was amazed at the wonderful presentaion from the authors and their wit between each other. I was also pleased that the book contained their personalities. I cannot imagine the undertaking of this book project. I saw slides of their homes full of all sorts of boxes full of wool while working on this. The information contained in this is enormous. The pictures of the many many animals are worth the price of admission alone. I am a spinner and knitter myself and I found all the knowledge very insiteful. I love understanding how my yarns are going to work in a garment I knit. I love to know the available natural colorways any sheep have for my pallette. You will meet all those sheep breeds you have heard of or spun up out of a bag. You will meet creatures you never have seen (did you know some sheep can have up to 6 horns??). We read this aloud on our roadtrip home from the festival and it was full of intresting facts. When they first showed us the book I thought for sure it was going to cost more than any book I own but was pleasantly surprised I could get all of this awesome info and facts for the price. And hardbound. Also, each animal is listed as it's availability or noted if it's a rare or concervation breed. If we don't know of them and ask for their products, they will go away.

This is THE book about sheep breeds, other fiber animals, and their fibers. Truly comprehensive, it is packed with photos, descriptions, clear definitions and statistics, histories and uses for each and every fiber. Plus it is so readable - I haven't been able to put it down since I received it. It contains fascinating stories about the background of these unique fiber-producing animals: did you know there is a breed of sheep which subsists mainly on seaweed? Neither did I until I read this book! As a handspinner, I have found this lovely book and its portable companion "The Field Guide to Fleece" to be indispensable tools for study, planning, and just plain enjoyment. Take the small version with you to every fiber fair or fiber-buying excursion. Keep the Sourcebook out to consult at home. You will not be disappointed!

Wonderful! I bought the kindle version and have made heavy use of the information. A friend of mine bought the paper version though, and the full page color photos are wonderful and illustrative and show such a love of the character of each type of fiber. I'm going to have to buy the hardcover...

This "tome" was on my wish list for Christmas. Thought it would be a nice to have coffee table book. I started just flipping through it and ended up reading it cover to cover! What a wonderful read and resource book! Think I'll have to live to be at least 90 to have the time to try spinning all the "new" fibers I've become aware of. Great photos and wonderful descriptions of the qualities of the myriad of sheep and other fleece animals. Nice to have the suggested uses also. More than a great investment of time to read.

I have had a parallel manuscript in the same process for several years: raw fiber to clean fiber but diverging there to show the differences between what has been put out for dry/needle felters from the age-old information about wet felting.
There needs to be a new 'encyclopedia-style' book written for the handling of fiber in the newer dry techniques because what holds true for wet felting/fulling/handling is definitely not the same for using the same breeds' fibers dry.
That's the impetus of my book, though The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook has certainly done a supreme job of fact-finding and presenting images of the individual sheep. In my opinion, Fourniers' In Sheep's Clothing was the best guide before this.
I will simply refer my readers to The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook--once the 'wheel' has been invented, there's no sense in spending resources and time reinventing it. My readers will be better served focusing on the needling aspect differences between the many breeds.

I had just started buying different types of fibers to spin and wasn't sure of some of my choices. This book helped me know exactly what I had and how to use it. The pictures are fantastic and the information has saved me time and money. Now I'll buy only the fibers that will work for me. This is a large book, filled with everything you need to know about wool and other fiber sources. The price is a bargain.