Falkland Merino - The Falkland Islands

The Falkland Islands don't have any native sheep and they have a very complex past both politically and with regards to the different sheep that have been kept on the islands and the quality of the wool.  Its a long post that details this complex journey as best as I can.

The Falkland Islands is a group of islands in the South Atlantic Ocean in the southern hemisphere about 300 miles northeast of the southern tip of South America.  They have been claimed and occupied by several nations over their documented history, all using their own national flags during their occupation of the islands.  The UK has over-seen the self-governing of the Falkland Islands since 1833 as one of its overseas territories and provided military support and oversees foreign affairs, although ownership has long been disputed by Argentina and they have regularly protested Britain's occupation of the islands, their argument based on a papal bull issued by the pope of the Roman Catholic church in 1493 and on the need to end a colonial situation.  Britain have always maintained that they have had an open, continuous, effective possession, occupation and administration of the islands since 1833 and it has always applied the principle of self-determination on the Falklanders and that far from ending a colonial situation Argentine rule and control of the lives of the Falklanders against their wishes would, in fact, create one.  

On 2nd April 1982, Argentina's military government invaded and so began the 10 week long Falklands War, which they lost when British troops forcibly reoccupied the islands.  It cost the lives of over 600 Argentinian troops and over 250 British troops.  Argentina have still continued with the claim of the ownership of the Falkland Islands and to help resolve the issue, the people of the Falklands Islands held a referendum in 2013 to determine who they want to govern them.  The result was that just over 99% of the voters wanted the Falkland Islands to remain as a British overseas territory and keep their UK citizenship. A 2016 UN commission found that the Falklands Islands lie in Argentinian waters and the dispute continues despite the fact that the islands are 300 miles away from Argentina in the South Atlantic Ocean.

The islands got their own flag in 1876 which featured an image of HMS Hebe, a ship that brought many early British settlers to the island, and also a bullock to represent the feral cattle that once roamed the islands.  The flag was updated in 1925 to show a different ship, the Desire, captained by John Davis who discovered the islands in 1592, and also a sea lion.  It was updated again in 1948, keeping the Desire and changing the sea lion for a ram, depicting the main industry of the islands.

Over the years the islands have been used in many different ways.  To begin with they were used mostly as resupply and repair ports by passing ships. Some cattle and sheep were being raised on the islands for food.  In 1851 concerted efforts were made to establish sheep farms that specialised in the production of wool. A charter from Queen Victoria was given to tame the wild cattle that had been left by Spanish settlers who no longer lived there, to open a general store, start a postal system and to develop sheep farms.  Samuel Lafone arrived with Cheviot sheep from the Cheviot Hills from the north of England and they were crossed with other breeds over the years.  Settlers to the islands came from Scotland, Wales, England, France, Scandinavia and South America with many of these settlers descendants still living on the islands today.  

By 1898 there were in the region of 807,000 sheep on the islands and wool became the most valuable and largest export.  More than half of the farms were owned by the Falklands Islands Company and the rest were predominantly owned by wealthy people from London who hired people to tend to their flocks of sheep with the majority of the islanders being farm workers and tenants, not land owners or farm owners.  With the lack of ability to progress upwards in life, islanders started leaving and the population fell until an economic report recommended that large holdings owned by absentee landlords to be broken up and sold to the islanders.  This stopped people leaving and gave a better future with more prospects to the individual people of the Falkland Islands.

The 10 week long Falklands War in 1982 was disastrous to the flocks of sheep on the islands.  Many of the sheep and other livestock were killed by the Argentine soldiers for food and they also looted and caused destruction.  They placed approximately 30,000 land mines in 146 minefields to defend against the UK troops and some sheep fell victim to these too.  At the end of the war some of the landmines were cleared immediately but following a series of accidents that resulted in 6 deaths or serious injuries amongst the British and Argentinian demining teams, fences were placed around the remaining 117 minefields to protect the islanders and their sheep.  These fenced off areas became de facto nature reserves for the Magellanic and Gentoo Penguins, who were not heavy enough to trigger the mines.  Native flora also thrived in the minefields.  Something good coming from something bad.

The British Government ratified the Ottawa Treaty in 1998 that required the removal of all landmines within its territory by 1st March 2009 but many of the Falkland islanders opposed the demining operation stating that the landmines were clearly marked and there was no demand for the land.  It was also feared that it would have a detrimental effect on the nature reserves that would no longer be protected from farmers and tourists.  Some supported the removal of the landmines which would allow access to once popular beaches.  

The removal agreement also required that Argentina helped to remove their land mines but the Falklands Government refused to allow any Argentine presence on the islands.  After much deliberation the British began a landmine removal program alone and this started on the islands in 2009.  The deadline was extended to 2019 and then to 2021 due to the high cost and slow work.  The removal program cost £44 million. The final landmines were removed in November 2020.  The islanders celebrated with the detonation of the last land mine and the cutting down of the last fences which finally give them back access to the beaches.  

Also in November 2020, the Argentine government, still not happy, criticised the British landmine removal operation claiming that it was a violation of the 1976 United National General Assembly resolution 31/49 that called upon the two countries to "refrain from taking decisions that would imply introducing unilateral modifications in the situation" and they had also previously raised complaints about the British operation at the Ottawa Convention.  In November 2023, 3 mines were discovered in an area that proved difficult to clear due to shifting sand dunes which meant that many of the landmines were now buried really deep making many undetectable.  Digging the area deeply would destroy the nature reserves.  They were removed and the area checked again for mines and re-deemed safe in April 2024.  I dare say that many more mines may be discovered over the next century or so as they re-surface.

So, after the complex history lesson lets get back to the wool that is available to buy in present times.  The economy has broadened in recent years to include tourism and commercial fishing but sheep are very much an important part of the economy and the culture so much so that the Falklands Radio daily weather forecast includes a report on the wind chill factor for newly sheared sheep.  They sell the wool and the mutton, along with beef.  

There is spinning fibre, and yarn in fact, that is available to buy that is marketed under the name of "Falkland" but there isn't a Falkland breed of sheep.  The sheep on the Falkland Islands consist mostly of Polwarths, Corriedales, Romney's, Texels and Merino's and various crosses of all of these breeds.  The Falkland Island shepherds manage their flocks well and have achieved heavier fleeces with ever-finer and higher quality fibres.  Figures for 2023 show there to be just under 500,000 sheep on the islands.  Large amounts of the wool is gathered into a "wool pool" and sold for the highest price possible and would most likely contain a variety of breeds and crossbreeds.  It is cleaned and processed together and marketed as "Falklands wool", mostly in the European marketplace where it is well regarded for its texture and whiteness.

Falkland Merino Ewe and lamb

Talking of the whiteness, there are no known sheep diseases on the islands so the sheep do not have to go through the process of being chemically dipped.  The islands climate minimises bacteria and other factors that have an affect on the colour of the wool and these two things combined probably explain why the wool from the Falkland Islands tends to be very white.  Due to the cost of importing chemical fertilizers and herbicides to the islands the farmers have never used them and relied on other methods which means that the wool of the Falkland Islands can be certified as Organic.  43% of farms are accredited in the Responsible Wool Scheme and in addition a small number of farms have organic certification with Australian Certified Organic (AOC), which then further increases the value of their wool.

Since most of the wool is pooled and from a variety of different breeds this means that the fibre can range from 18-32 microns but most of the wool is probably 27-30 microns but all of it would be comfortable to wear next to skin.  There can be a variety of crimps in the spinning fibre, lustre and subtle texture differences between the mill run batches and different years so it is always best to buy enough fibre, or yarn, at the same time, from the source and batch number if it is noted, to ensure consistency.

If you are lucky you may be able to find named breed fleeces for sale that have been imported from the Falkland Islands to the UK that have not gone into the "wool pool" because if a farmer produces exceptionally fine fleece and can prove they are organic they can demand a higher price than a "wool pool price" and so often sell these to "wool traders".

I brought this breed in back in June 2015 as a whole fleece via Ebay from a company, that was at that time trading on Ebay as AshfordFibres.co.uk and they were selling from a little village called Atwick, which is in Holderness, East Riding of Yorkshire.  It confused me at the time because of the similarity with Ashford who sell spinning wheels and spinning fibre, who are a completely different company.  Anyway, AshfordFibres.co.uk seem to have disappeared now, no such company. However, having found the receipt for this fleece there appears to be another trading name of www.wooltops.co.uk and they appear to still be trading, or at least there is an online shop with a limited amount of stock in it.  

Sold to me as a Superfine Falklands Islands Merino fleece that comes from a small flock on the Falkland Islands with a count of 18/19 microns and staple length of  3½ to 4½ inches.  Just look at the beautiful crimp in these photos that I took right before I washed it.

On arrival this weighed approx 1493g.  I removed 113g of second cuts and really short locks that really were too short to be processed and then got on with washing the fleece.

Once it was all dry I was left with a clean fleece weight of 1010g and apart from using a small amount of it for a single spinning project this fleece has remained untouched in a clean pillowcase for all of those years, until now.  I was thinking of using this fleece to make the yarn that will join this entire project together because it does need to used up but since combing and spinning some of it for this project I have changed my mind and I will buy in something that is sturdier of holding all the heavy wool pieces together for that job.  I will keep this Falkland Merino to make some beautiful lace shawls with at a later date.  

I have put off working with the fleece for so long because it is exceptionally fine and I feared that my Valkyrie Extra Fine wool combs would not be able to cope with the fineness of it.  I persevered and combed 146g of the fleece that I have left and was able to produce 103g of lovely, buttery soft hand combed top, but it took me over 8 and a half hours over 7th and 8th July to get that much.  

Unfortunately, I forgot to take good photos of the hand combed top but I do have a couple that I took with my phone as I was combing.

This fleece is absolutely beautiful, even after all of these years.  It then took me 3 days, 9th, 10th and 11th July to spin the singles really finely, as this is another breed that will bounce up after spinning and washing.  

I started to ply the singles late evening of 11th July but had to park it for the night and finish the ply on the morning of 12th July.

When I washed the skein after spinning, a lot of grease washed out of it, the water became quite milky.  This is probably due to being overly careful during the initial washing process of the fleece all those years ago.  Handling it very gingerly so as not to turn it to felt. This has spun up to 16wpi and it feels so lightweight and so so so soft.  There is 99g/626m of 2ply yarn.  I have no idea how I have so many metres for the weight of the skein in comparison to what I have achieved for the other breeds so far and yet they are in the same yarn weight bracket of 16wpi.

It took me a few days to complete the knitted piece, starting on 24th and ending on 27th July 2025 and the piece and the sample has only used 12g/76m.

Whilst I was knitting this up I was finally able to secure myself a pair of Valkyrie Super Fine wool combs, which I have been looking for for a number of years but as they are precision made by hand by one man they are very hard to get hold of as as soon as he puts them up for sale they are snapped up.

Gotland (Gotlandsfår) - Sweden

Gotlandsfår, more commonly known as Gotland, is a breed of sheep from Sweden that was developed in the 20th century from the more primitive Gutefår (also known as Gute or Gotland Outdoor sheep) by breeding them with Karakuls (from central Asia) and Romanovs (from Russia) in the 1920's and 1930's.  There is a geographical coincidence to the breeds origins on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. 

They are fine boned and medium sized sheep. Both sexes are polled.  They have black heads and legs, which are free of wool, although white markings may appear on the top of the head or around the nose and mouth.  The tail is short with a hair covered tip.  Rams weigh around 75-85kg and ewes weigh around 55-70kg. They are docile and friendly, although older rams can become quite aggressive.

They are bred mainly for their sheepskins and meat and because the focus has been on producing good sheepskin the double coat has been replaced by a fleece made up of purely guard hairs.  They are the only Swedish sheep breed that is it not in a conservation program due to the high numbers of them, 15,817 breeding ewes as of 2021.  Whilst their sheepskins are popular in Europe, elsewhere their fleece is prized by handspinners.

The wool of the Gotland is quite unusual.  It closely resembles a fine mohair or an English lustre longwool more than it does it other Northern European Short Tail breeds to which it belongs.  Lambs are quite often born black and the fleece will lighten with age and continue to lighten throughout their lives.  The predominant colours are a range of grey that starts with a very pale silver grey right through to charcoal grey that is very close to black.  Black, brown and white fleece can be found but are quite rare.  Different strains of Gotlands have different fleece characteristics but they all have great length, lustre and a well-developed wavy crimp.

Commercially processed top is known to often be more matte and coarser than when it is hand combed from fleece when it seems to be shinier and softer and two can feel like completely different breeds.  I have personally experienced this difference.

It can be spun into smooth or heavily textured yarns and the beautiful clean unspun locks often decorate other textiles.  It can be felted and it is more comfortable in next-to-skin items  that would be expected of other fibres in the same micron range.  Fabric can be lightweight, durable and drape well whilst also possessing a subtle gleam

There is a strain of Gotlands in New Zealand that has been bred for increased fineness and their wool was used to make the Elven cloaks worn by the main characters in all three of the Lord of the Rings movies.

Fleece weights are usually 2.5kg-5kg and the staple length can be variable but usually 7.5cm-18cm (3-7 inches) but sometimes they are sheared twice a year to produce staples that are 7.5-10cm (3-4 inches).  In terms of fibre diameters, lambs can be as fine as 18 microns to low mid-20s and adults range from 27-35 microns.  The locks are relatively long, high lustre, really wavy and sometimes curly and they feel silky.  The tips of the locks often turn brown.  The natural grey colour is beautiful as it is but can be dyed, with the natural grey influencing the shade and tone of resulting colour.

The fine fibres can be a bit flyaway, especially in dry climates but the locks can be spun directly from the locks, flicked, combed or, if you have shorter fibres, you can card.  Gotland lends itself to be spun into fine yarns far easier than being spun into bulkier yarns.  Prepared fibre for spinning appears quite fluffy but when it is spun the yarn will have a heavier feeling to it and will have a lot of drape.  Its quite slippery too.  It can be spun woollen style from batts or rolags, which will give texture or you can spin worsted style from top for fine shiny drapey yarns. 

I bought this breed in as 105g of unwashed raw fleece that was part of a sample pack that featured 8 different Swedish breeds that I purchased back in early May 2022 from a lady called Anita Grahn based in Uppsala, Sweden.  I was going to add a link for Anita and her shop but when I looked her last social media post was in October of 2024 stating that she was in hospital and she has not posted anything since and her online shop is empty as of April 2025. I do hope she is OK.  However, I can provide a link to Swedish Fibre, a small business run by Sandy Zetterlund who has a passion for knitting, wool, spinning and now a passion for bringing these beautiful fleece from these rare conservation sheep kept by small farmers into the limelight and put them in front of similarly passionate hand spinners like myself who care about ensuring the future and continuation of these rare and unique breeds.  The demand for and sale of the fleece from these rare breeds really do help the survival of the breed.  

There doesn't appear to be much different between the dirty fleece above the washed fleece below in terms of colour but when I was sorting the fleece out prior to washing, 11g of second cuts was removed reducing the amount straight down to 94g and once it was washed and dried this became 84g.

When I combed this in May 2022 I got 55g of hand combed top from it.  I thought it might be enough but then I decided to add 50g of some commercially prepared Gotland that was in my stash.  The colours are quite different with a slight brownish cast to the commercial prep. 

To even this out I split lots into two equal amounts and then used my blending hackle to physically blend and combine the different colours together to give a more even colour.  I lost an amount of the shortest fibres from both types of prep in the blending hackle prongs but the colour is now more even and I have a nice 91g to spin.

As this wool leans more towards a Longwool type than anything else, the yarn produced will be a heavier, more dense type of wool and will have good drape.  I spun this over 3 days, 5th, 6th and plied on the 7th July 2025.

It has spun up as a 16wpi yarn, although it does feel a lot heavier in the hand than some other yarns, that would be down to the denseness of this type of wool.  It is 89g/249m and it is not as soft as other Gotland that I spun in the past.  I knit the panel for my project over a couple of days 21st-23rd July 2025, due to the hot, sticky, humid weather.  This and the small sample for my scrapbook used up 25g/70m of yarn.

I had to pin this one to keep it open, even after blocking, as it just wants to roll the edges up.  I hope that it is readable.

Perendale - New Zealand

The Perendale was developed in the 1950s as a dual-purpose meat and fibre breed for use in steep hill situations by Geoffrey Peren at Massey University in New Zealand.  Peren crossed Cheviot rams on Romney ewes to produce this breed.  Although Perendales were first imported into the USA in 1977, they are still rare in North America.  They are a medium-sized longwool sheep that does well in cold and wet climates.  Both sexes are polled.

The number of this breed has increased since the 1980s because hill-farming has increased and these sheep are perfectly adapted to that kind of terrain.  Rams generally weigh 100kg-118kg and ewes weigh substantially less at 54kg-68kg.  These are very much a commercial breed of sheep that were bred to replace the pure breed Romneys that had deviated from its original type over the years and were no longer doing so great in the hilly areas of the north island of New Zealand, despite the fact that they had been on the land since 1853.  Perendale's are bred for their meat and wool and it is hard to find any really good concise information about them as they are not really the kind of sheep that people take to shows. 

Perendale is a bouncy wool, which will spin up with a spring to it, as opposed to the compact sleekness of English longwools.  This lofty quality can add warmth to sweaters or cushioning qualities to rugs, depending on the fineness of the fibre and your plans for using it.

There are both finer and coarser ranges within the breed, and New Zealand standards have moved toward the coarse end of the scale lately in response to market demands and husbandry realities.  Thus some sheep are producing wools for general knitting yarns whilst others grow fleeces best suited for harder wearing textiles like rugs, bags and upholstery.

Fleece weigh 3.4kg-5kg with staple lengths of 4-6 inches (10cm-15cm).  The fibre diameters are usually 28-35 microns but in New Zealand there is a shift more towards 30-37 microns.

The fibres have even crimp with low lustre and free of kemp or black hairs.  They are usually white, although there are some coloured flocks.  The fleece will take dye well but not with the same clarity that other longwools do and without any shine.  It can be spun straight from the lock, be flicked or combed although if you have a fleece that is short you can card that.  The fibres will capture air and be bouncy, if you are spinning worsted you may need to spin finer than you would usually to allow for bloom.  Yarns will be slightly crisp and will be good for texture stitches and patterns.

I brought this breed in as 100g of pre-prepared fibre from World of Wool ready to spin in May 2022.

This is another breed that will bounce up after it has been spun and so you have to spin it finer than you would normally spin most other wools to achieve the yarn weight that you desire.  It took me a few days to spin this, as I've not been well, but trying to carry on and do something to stop me from climbing the walls.  So, I started spinning this on 19th June and finished it on 21st June.

It spun up as a 16wpi/Light Fingering weight yarn that is 94g/343m and has a really nice feel to it and it is soft but not as soft as Merino, obviously.  I knit the panel for my project on 3rd July 2025 and I think you can read the words clearly enough.  This and my sample used up 18g/66m of yarn.

This one is a lot easier to read than some of the others.

Zwartbles - The Netherlands

The Zwartbles was developed in the early 19th century in Friesland by crossing the Friesland milk sheep (a short-tailed polled sheep) and the Schoonebeker (horns and hairy) to graze behind a dairy herd.  The name means "black with a white blaze".  A naturally tame and gentle milking sheep they are traditionally used for milk and meat with the wool being an afterthought.  There numbers declined in The Netherlands to about 500 with only about half of them being considered as purebred until the Dutch Rare Breed Survival Trust listed them as critically rare in the mid-1970s.  Most were living on just 6 farms at the time and they started a flock book in 1985 as the numbers had increased once again, in part due to the interest of the black wool with hand spinners.

Tall with a long body, completely black with a white blaze from the top of the head to the nose, two white socks on the back legs and a white tip on the tail.  The medium-fine wool shades through brown to black.  A UK breed society was formed in 1995 after the breed was first imported in the early 1990s and it was only after that that the fibre was made available.  In 2011 there were over 750 Zwartble flocks registered with the UK breed society

Zwartbles are quite large with rams weighing 100kg and ewes 85kg.  Fleece weigh 3kg-4.5kg with a staple length of 4 -6 inches (10-15cm) and fibre diameters of 28-34 microns.  The fleece is dense so any sun-bleaching to the tips will not travel far into the length of the staple.  The wool is medium to fine with excellent crimp and is very dark and probably one of the blackest black fleeces available in the UK.  Its not really worth trying to dye fleece from this breed, unless you have an amount of white or silvery fibres in the fleece and you are dying it black.  Because of the amount of crimp, yarns will be bouncy and make cosy items. Yarn produced is definitely for more durable items than luxury items, so hats, gloves, cardigans and household textiles as the crispness will emphasize stitch definition.  

I brought this breed in as 100g of commercially produced top from John Arbon Textiles in July 2022.

I spun both singles and plied them over two days, 13th and 14th June 2025, spinning a bit finer than my first attempt with spinning this breed, which went way off course in terms of final yarn weight produced and ended up as a Double Knit.  This time I managed to achieve a yarn that is around 14wpi, fingering weight yarn, and close enough to be used in my project at 103g/392m.

I'm not sure of the actual date that I finished knitting up the panel, as I have been ill with this new type of flu/Covid variant that has been going around. It has hit me for six and knocked me off my feet but I am still trying to carry on and at least do something towards my project, even if it takes me 3 times as long to do anything.

I hope that you can read what this says, it does actually say Zwartbles on the top with a line underneath it and The Netherlands underneath that.  Ii is really hard to get the wording to show up on the darker wools.  This and my scrapbook sample used up 17g/65m of yarn.

Zwartbles - DK weight yarn

This yarn was meant to be spun to a certain weight for my current W.I.P. The Non-British Sheep Breeds Project and it was going great until I washed it.  It bloomed big time.  What appeared to be spinning and plying to be a yarn that measured about 16wpi, and perfect for my project, puffed up to 11wpi once it was washed and dried.  Some wools will do that and its all to do with the amount of crimp the wool has and this varies from breed to breed, some breeds don't have crimp in the wool, some have a little, some have a lot.  Not all wools are the same and crimp is just one of many factors to take into consideration.  This is one of the reasons why we have so many different breeds of wool producing sheep, all the different factors and possible combinations that affect the wool - crimp, staple length, fibre diameters, soft or scratchy, hardwearing or cuddly, matte or lustrous or something in-between, and many more, and that is just about the wool side of things, never mind about the physical abilities of the sheep that farmer is interested in such as size, how many lambs they can have a one time, how often can they lamb, do they birth easy, good mothering skills, how much meat do they produce, are they prone to footrot or other diseases which will determine the kind of environment that is best for them, can they live on poor quality grazing, can they thrive at low altitudes, high altitudes, flat land, hills, windy areas, wet areas, dry areas.  The mind boggles at the things that have to be taken into consideration.  Anyway, I digress.

Yes, so this yarn that is now no longer destined to be used, or partially used, in my intended project.  I used two bumps of spinning fibre, from two different supplies.  I had a 100g bump that I bought in 2018 from World of Wool and I had a 50g bump that came in mixed breed box called "Viking Varieties" that I bought from Fibre Hut in 2020.  I decided to use the both together and make one "larger than usual" skein of yarn, knit the sample piece and still be left with enough to make something useful with what was left.  I split both lots in half and paired them together for 2 x 75g lots of fibre and pre-drafted them together so as to begin to mix and blend the fibres from the two different sources together and even out any differences in quality, colour, tone etc as there will always be differences, even between sheep from the same flock.

As I had already checked before spinning as to whether or not this was one of the wools that would bloom after spinning, and being armed with this information, I thought I had spun it fine enough to allow for any post-spinning blooming and for the yarn to still be within my target thickness.  It turns out that I was way off in my estimations of the amount that this would bloom.  

This yarn is 11wpi, making it a double-knit weight yarn and it is 147g/438m, which is equivalent to 100g/298m.   I started my spinning on 29th May and finished on 1st June and I know that I am only now blogging about this one today, 22nd June, but I had to know for sure what was happening with this skein before I wrote about it.

Luckily, I had another 100g bump of Zwartbles fibre in my stash that I got from yet another different fibre supplier and so I spun that up, taking even more time and care to get it extra extra fine and, although that one has bounced up a lot as well, it is close enough to my target thickness and so I will be using that one to knit the project piece and I will complete the Zwartbles breed blog post, with all the information of the history of that breeds, once I have knitted the project piece up.

Icelandic - Iceland

The Icelandic sheep belongs to the Northern European Short-Tailed group of sheep and, as the name suggests, come from Iceland.  Introduced by the Vikings between 870 and 930CE when they made settlements in Iceland, with some more added a few years later.  Since then, it has been illegal to import more sheep into Iceland and so this breed has developed in almost total isolation, without any genetic input from any other sheep breeds, making the Icelandic breed one of the world's purest livestock  populations.  They are grown primarily for meat in Iceland and the breed is best known elsewhere for its fleece and there are established successful and distinctive markets for their wool. These sheep provide 25% of the island nation's agricultural revenue. 

The Icelandic is larger than most other breeds in the Northern European Short-Tailed group but it is generally short-legged and stocky, slender and light-boned, and usually horned, although polled and polycerate (many horned) animals can occur.  The face and legs are free of wool. The ewes are highly prolific with the chance of twins being very high and there is a gene that is carried by some ewes called the þoka (Thoka) that can result in the birth of multiple lambs at a time.

Within the breed there is a strain that is called Leadersheep, which carries a hereditary ability or predisposition to be especially intelligent and these sheep play important roles in the flock and can lead other sheep safely over dangerous ground and alert others to hazards like predators and storms.  These sheep are specially identified and bred.  In 2000, the Leadersheep Society of Iceland was founded to conserve them.

Until the 1940s it was the predominant milk producing animal in Iceland.  In the 21st century it is reared principally for meat, which accounts for more than 80% of the total income derived from sheep farming.  In 1978 there were approximately 891,000, or about four sheep for every inhabitant of Iceland.  By 2007, the total number had fallen to about 450,000.  In 2018 numbers fell again to around 432,000.

Icelandic sheep can be found in a whole range of colours, white, tan, brown, grey, black and mixed colours too.  Colour inheritance is similar to that of other sheep but these display more variety and pattern than other breeds and some of the variations are unique to the Icelandic.

Icelandic sheep grow double-coated fleece. The finer undercoat is called þel, in English spelt as thel (the initial letter is a character known as thorn, pronounced with a th sound) and this insulates the animal against the cold.  The outercoat is called tog and this gives protection from windy, wet and cold weather and is not as coarse as other outercoats in similar breeds, in fact, it can be a bit more like mohair and sometimes more of a silky quality.  They have the ability to naturally shed their fleece but most often they are sheared.

Fleece weights are generally 1.8kg-3.2kg and aren't very greasy and have yields in a wide range from 50%-90%, with the highest figure being where both types of fibre have been used. The outer coat can be 28-40 microns and 4-18 inches in length (10cm-45.7cm).The inner coat has a diameter of 19-22 microns and 2-4 inches in length (5cm-10cm).  The two types may be used separately or spun into a single yarn.  The coats are easiest to separate after they have been washed by catching the sheared end of the lock on a carder or comb and just tug on the long outercoat fibres. If you want to spin both coats together it may be easier to card the fibres, rather than comb them which will separate the fibre types, and be really careful when drafting to ensure both coats are taken up at the same rate.  Maybe the outercoat could be spun worsted and the undercoat spun woollen and then ply them together?  There are no hard fast rules in spinning, just make sure the singles are spun in the same direction though.

Commercially prepared Icelandic spinning fibre will usually contain both coats, as will commercially spun yarn.  The undercoat is an obvious choice for knitting and crocheting, while the outercoat lends itself easily to weaving, needle point and other stitchery or maybe making a knitted or crochet tote bag.

If you plan to dye the wool, whites will produce clear colours, overdyeing natural colours results in interestingly subtle shades. 

I bought this breed in as part of a breed exploration box featuring four "Viking breeds" in February 2020.  50g of commercially prepared fibre for spinning.

I spun both singles and plied them together on 29th May 2025 and made a 16wpi yarn, light fingering weight, that was 53g/183m.  This one is softer than I expected too with a very slight crispness to it.

I test knit this up using the design that I had originally created that was initial capitals and lowercase but I couldn't read the lettering so I ended up undoing it and re-knitting it after I changed all of the designs to just uppercase letters, like I did for the British Sheep Breeds Project. I also knit a sample square for my scrapbook and I will be doing that for all of the breeds and in total I used up 16g/56m of yarn.

Hopefully you can see that it says Icelandic with Iceland underneath

Norsk Spaelsau (modern) - Norway

The Norsk Spælsau, also known as Spælsau, are a Norwegian breed of sheep that have been developed during the 19th century by cross breeding the original small Gammelnorsk Sau (The Old Norwegian Sheep) with Icelandic, Faroese and Finnsheep breeds to produce a much larger sheep that produces much more meat.

In 1912, the state bought 60 purebred Old Norwegian Sheep from isolated mountain flocks and flocks on a couple of islands and shared them equally between two breeding stations.  There, the breeding was planned and managed and the sheep were better fed which resulted in a significant increase in their weight.  To increase their size further, in 1920, Faroese rams were crossed with them and then later on Icelandic rams were also used.  There were also sporadic crossings with Finn, Leicester, Blackface and Gotland but these had little influence on the size of the lambs produced.

Raised primarily for meat and wool production, it also produces good quality milk.   Individuals are usually polled with just 10% occurrence of horns in either sex. The adult ewes reach a weight of 65kg-70kg, about double the size of The Old Norwegian.  The fleece that is produces is also about twice the weight of the original breed at 2kg-3kg.  It still produces a double coated fleece, like the old breed, but with all the cross breeding the quality of the wool has declined significantly.  The length of the two coats are no longer about the same length as they were with the old breed, the outercoat is now much longer and can be twice as long as the undercoat or even longer and is really coarse so the fibre diameters are recorded separately for the different coats.  The undercoat is about 31.5 microns whilst the outercoat is 57.1 microns.  It protects the sheep from the weather and can be spun tightly for weaving but is not good for spinning into yarn for knitting.  The undercoat is still quite fine and soft.  Most of the new Spælsau are white, although their ancestors black, grey and brown colours still appear.

I bought this breed in as 100g of pre-washed fleece in May 2022 but I decided to re-wash this as a precaution, even though it was from a completely different source to where I have bought lots of fleece sample amounts from that weren't as clean as I would expect.  After washing I was left with 91g of clean fleece.

There is a lot of really coarse white guard hairs in this fleece.  I combed it in January 2024 anyway in the hope that I will  have enough of the soft black wool for my project.

It gave me just 31g of hand combed medium soft wool top with just a little bit of the hair left in for texture.  I have been looking for more of these fleece on and off since I prepared this one but I have never found any except for one person who wants over £70 for a small bit of fleece and that doesn't include the sales tax or international delivery, which pushes the cost to well over £100 and is a ridiculous price.   This small amount of fibre might not make enough yarn for my project so my only option is to spin it as fine as I can and hope for the best.

I spun both singles and plied them on 28th May 2025 and managed to make a 16wpi yarn, light fingering weight, of about 30g/102m.  It is softer than I expected and is really nice.

Over the past month or so I had created and printed out all of the charted designs for all of the breeds that I have acquired for this project.  I knit the first piece for my project, and there was enough yarn for the piece with a small amount of leftovers, but I couldn't read the lettering.  So not being sure if it was because its an almost black yarn or because I didn't use all uppercase lettering for this project, I put it aside and made the next project piece using the yarn I spun from the next breed.  I couldn't read the lettering on that one either, and that is a white wool, so I took the decision to undo both pieces of knitting and re-do all of the designs for the entire project again but in all uppercase, just like the first breed project that I did a few years ago.

Somehow, most of the designs work out a few less rows and a few less stitches now that they are all in uppercase and yet it is the same font and same size.  I re-knit this one and this time was left with enough yarn to knit a little sample square for a scrapbook that I am doing for my spinning.  By the time I had finished there was such a small amount left that it wasn't worth keeping it.

It's not very clear in the photo but it does say Norsk Spælsau on the top line and Norway underneath it.