Fresh Fiber

 I am sure, that by now, you are sick unto death, of my saying "Fresh fiber is good".

Here in California, we have been having some "fine dry weather" that produced some natural experiments on why fresh fiber is good.

1) I use Alden's recipe for spinning oil. It is great for spinning very fine, but it is mostly water. Put it on fiber and let it day and it does not work when dry. 

2) Wool can absorb moisture, and wool holding some moisture is easier to spin fine.  

3) If combed wool dries so much that it is hard to spin fine, it is better to spray it with water and recomb and diz, rather than just spritzing with water. Just spritzing does not evenly moisten all fibers. Combing spreads the moisture through the wool mass and along the fibers. In our fine weather, if I just spritzed the mass, it would dry, before the moisture diffused to all parts of all fibers.

These factors may not be so prominent for commercially produced combed top. I will accept that argument if you can take that commercially produced combed top and spin it at its "spin count" as it comes out of the package. I an spin wool at its spin count as it comes off  the combs. When I have commercially produced combed top I prepare it just like I prepare raw fleece.

I once complained about the warm weather in California one spring, and my boss said, "I will do something about that right now!" And, he handed me a one way ticket to Saudi Arabia and I spent a long warm summer fighting oil well fires and disposing to the resulting hazardous waste. Since 1991, I have not complained about the weather in California. At worst, our weather is an opportunity to learn and improve one's moral fiber. The truth is: Wool grease melts at 120F, so it is easier to scour wool in our fine climate.