Combing some non-British Sheep fleece

Back in this post from December 2020, I came up with the idea of doing a sampler featuring the wools of different sheep breeds and I mentioned that I would make two different ones, one for the 57 different pure breed British Breeds (not including standard crosses like Welsh Mule, Masham etc) and one for the other breeds that are non-British (even if there are flocks of some of them now living in the UK).

I am building up quite a collection of small amounts of fleece and ready-to-spin fibre for a lot of these breeds and what I have been doing this past month or so, since 13th January, is that I have been preparing some of the small amounts of washed fleece ready for spinning.

Top half of photo collage
Large picture top left - Norsk Spelsau - Norway
Small picture top middle - Galway - Ireland
Small picture top right - Berrichon du Cher - France
Small picture 2nd row middle - Coloured Beltex - Belgium
Small picture 2nd row right - Blue Texel - The Netherlands

Lower half of photo collage
Small picture top left - Roussin de la Hague - France
Small picture top middle - Tiroler Steinschaf - Austria
Small picture bottom left - Harjedalsfaren - Sweden
Small picture bottom middle - Ouessant - France
Large picture bottom right - Klovsjo - Sweden

These are all different kinds of fleece, there are some very bouncy, almost "Downs-like" fleece, some are more longwool type and some are dual-coated like the Harjedalsfaren.  I've not started spinning any of the breeds that I have just yet but I do know that I will need to spin finer yarns than I did for the British Breeds project as I have limited amounts of each of them due to cost and availability but also because when I do the designs I not only need to get the name of the breed in the design but also the country such as Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Ireland, USA etc etc whilst still keeping the entire project within a manageable physical size.

What I have so far, besides those above are: Rambouillet (France), Eider (Germany), Targhee (USA), Pommersches Landschaf (Germany), Texel (The Netherlands, and considered a different breed from Blue Texel), Swedish Finewool (Sweden), Helsinge (Sweden), Asen (Sweden), Varmland (Sweden), Roslad (Sweden), Gestrike (Sweden), Rya (Sweden), Gotland (Sweden), Finnish (Finland), Onderslands Bonte Schaapo (The Netherlands), Highlander (New Zealand), Coburger Fuchschaf (Bavaria), Swiss Vallais Blacknose (Switzerland), Corriedale (New Zealand), Charollais (France), Polwarth (Australia), Perendale (New Zealand), Icelandic (Iceland), Zwartbles (The Netherlands), Tiroler Bergschaf (Austria), Faroese (Faroe Islands), New Zealand (New Zealand, who'd have guessed), Scandinavian Mountain (Scandinavia), South American (South America), Norwegian (Norway), Punta Arenas (Chile), Beltex (Belgium), Est a Laine (France), Cormo (Tasmania/Australia), Gutefar (Sweden) and Falkland Merino (Falkland Islands).

There are others that I am on the lookout for, as and when I see them, depending on costs and ability to be able to import them or not.  Merino is traditionally and historically a Spanish sheep so I will make sure I have some standard Merino in this project too.  At some point I will have to make the decision that I have enough samples and get designing and spinning but I'm in no immediate rush to do that as I'm happy to see what this years may bring forth first.

Spinning the Whiteface Dartmoor blend

With the festive celebrations and everything else it has taken me around about a month to spin up the entirety of this blend that I put together myself back in June 2023, but then there is just over 450g of it.  I finished spinning the first skein on 16th December 2023 and the last skein on 10th January 2024.

As I was spinning I had to keep thinning out the various lumps and bumps of different fibres and I also tried to make sure that there were at least a few strands of the Whiteface Dartmoor throughout the entirety of the length of the yarn.

All of the skeins are sport weight and they are reasonably soft considering the fact that majority fibre in the blend is Whitefaced Dartmoor.  The fibre content is 67.5% Whiteface Dartmoor, 13.5% Merino, 5% Corriedale, 4% Tussah Silk, 3% Hemp, 3% Longwool breed, 3% Sari Silk, 1% Angelina.  Unfortunately the Angelina doesn't show up in the photos but it is there and under the right lighting conditions you can see little purple sparkles in the yarn.  In total there is 454g/859m.

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 24

The Tradition

Day 24 is called Christmas Crackers and the tradition comes from the United Kingdom.  A Christmas staple for us that were invented in 1847 by Tom Smith when sales of his bonbons, a small chocolate confection filled with liqueur or other sweet alcoholic ingredients and sold wrapped in brightly coloured foil, slumped and he tried ways to get people to buying them again.  He first tried inserting love messages inside of the foil wrapping, much like a fortune cookie.  After hearing the crackle of a log on the fire, he was inspired to incorporate the banger and changed the size and design of the wrapping to allow for this. Eventually the chocolate was replaced with a trinket such as a fan, jewellery or other item and later the hat, gifts and varied designs were introduced by his son, Walter Smith.

Christmas Crackers are now used as a table decoration in the UK, Ireland and Commonwealth countries such as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and more.  They are basically a segmented cardboard tube wrapped in bright paper with a gift, paper hat and a joke in the centre section and the look like oversized wrapped sweets.  The cracker is pulled from each end by two people, each holding an outer chamber, it will split unevenly with one person holding the centre section with the prize and a slight "bang" when it splits.  They come in various sizes and various price points depending on the quality of the gifts inside, from cheap and cheerful sold in boxes of 6 or 12 in supermarkets for an average of £10 to £40 right through to really luxurious crackers sold at places like Fortnum & Mason where you can buy a set of 6 crackers for £5,000 where the prizes are contained in golden envelopes inside the cracker and can be luxurious hampers, elegant china, afternoon tea experiences and such like and obviously have to be claimed afterwards using the enclosed ticket/voucher.

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 40% Merino (Pearl), 45% Sari Silk (Lagoon, Orb & Punch), 15% Cashmere. This blend has Merino, Cashmere and Sari Silk in it and it has a lot of colours.  Christmas Crackers have always been bright, they weren't dull, ever, they were always meant to be bright and beautiful, just like this blend.  It's so so soft, that will be the Merino and the Cashmere, because we haven't featured Cashmere yet in this box and we have to put it in somewhere,  The Sari Silk brings all these streaks of colour and if you've ever fought over the colour of Christmas Crackers with your siblings you'll know the excitement of getting the shade you want.  This is not a spin for the feint of heart, it requires concentration because as you draft it out the cashmere is going to want to zoom ahead and the Sari Silk is going to try to hold it all together and give you a really textured spin. 

My Thoughts

OMG this is ugly.  This is my reaction to this one.  I really do not like this one!  Some people have spun this one up already and I still don't like it and others are like me and will either dye it or tear it up into different colours and use it in other blends.  For me, this one will either be split up by colour and used in my own blends or I may do a similar thing to what I did with the "Stonewall" braid. This one is so different to how the camera on my phone captured the colours at the time, which looks more blue than it is but thankfully my Canon camera has come through and got it captured perfectly.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards were initially incorrect as they only added up to 85% but we got there in the end.

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 23

The Tradition

Day 23 is called Cavalcade of Lights and the tradition comes from Canada.  An annual festival that has been held in Toronto since 1967.  The Nathan Phillips square is decorated with upwards of half a million(!) lights and a giant Christmas tree which is usually around 18 metres high. There is an opening night celebration with live performances, the lighting of the city's official Christmas Tree and nightly ice skating and festive lights for the entire festive season.

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 40% Merino (Charcoal), 30% Corriedale (Raven), 30% Tussah Silk (Lemon, Acai & Taro).   This is a very bright blend.  This is Merino, Corriedale and Tussah Silk.  The lights are best seen at night which is why we have black Merino and black Corriedale in this because that makes the Tussah Silk colours pop and they are so vibrant, look at these coming through here.  So just like the lights you will see the shimmer and the sheen in this.  This is a very Silk heavy blend, we've got the wool in to help contain it all otherwise the Silk will just run away with you anytime you try to do anything.  In terms of spinning, take this one slowly.  If you do a finer yarn you might loose the colours because this hasn't been overly blended if you break it up very carefully you may just be able to get a black and blue or bit of black and yellow.  Alternatively if you spin from the fold you can get all sorts of different colours coming though randomly.

My Thoughts

Oooh, I got excited about this one.  It is so different looking to most other blends.  Those bight silk colours really pop against the black wool.  The silk is not blended in so it may be possible to separate the silk colours out away from the black wool and then I can think of two ways to spin it.  You could break it up into short lengths and re-combine individual colours of silk with the black so that you have everchanging pops of colour against the black and then maybe chain ply to keep the colours together or you could spin the black and the spin the coloured silk as two separate singles and then ply them together but this does rely on there being the same amount of coloured silk as there is wool and there isn't but it might be possible to do a three ply of 2 black and 1 coloured.  Another way it to just split it down the length in thin strips, ensuring that there is both black and colour in each strip and then just spin from the end and its up to you if you want to do a 2 ply, 3 ply or chain ply or something else. The camera on my phone captured most of the colours but my proper Canon camera has done a slightly better job.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards seem to be correct.  

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 22

The Tradition

Day 22 is called Dia De Las Velitas and the tradition comes from Colombia and means "The Day of the Little Candles" and it is celebrated on 7th December, which is the eve of  the Immaculate Conception.  On this night small candles and paper lanterns are lit and placed outside both a home and in public places, anywhere they can be seen in honour of the Virgin Mary and her Immaculate Conception.  It is not mandatory to work the next day, on 8th December and it is customary to hoist a white flag with an image of the Virgin Mary for the entire day on houses.  

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 50% Shetland (Corn & Cinnamon), 30% Bluefaced Leicester (Lightning), 20% Sari Silk (Honeycomb & Goldrush).  We have blended together Shetland, Sari Silk and BFL.  The Shetland and BFL are very British fibres and this is a very bright blend, much like all the light given off by all those candles.  There's a lot of texture in here.  The Sari Silk brings streaks of golden yellow, there's some paler yellows, little pops of red in there as well and you can see a pale yellow from the Shetland and then a pale creamy white from the BFL.  Because these are British breeds, they're not as soft as Merino but do not let that put you off, they are absolutely lovely.  They have bulk and a good smoothness and they're not going to run away with you when you spin.  When you're spinning it you will find that the Sari Silk clumps a little bit but that's absolutely fine because it will give you texture, lumps and just make a really interesting yarn so that whatever you make from it afterwards will have just a little bit more character than it would otherwise.

My Thoughts

I really like this one and I think this could work with Day 19, Volcancitos as the colours are closer in those two than they are with Day 14, Misa de Gallo (Festival of the Rooster). The Sari Silk in this will make an interestingly textured yarn and I find Sari Silk easier to spin than Silk nepps, which I have been adding to a lot of my own blends lately.  This one is so different to how the camera on my phone captured the colours, that first photo looks so washed out and pale but thankfully all the colours show up in the photos taken with my Canon camera.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards seem to be correct, although the name of the day seems to read as Vetitas instead of Velitas, that cross on the second t certainly crosses through what should be an l.

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 21

The Tradition

Day 21 is called Roller Blades and the tradition comes from Venezuela, the capital Caracas to be exact.  It is thought that because Venezuela is a melting pot of migrants, including German and other European settlers along with Portuguese, Spanish, Brazilian and other South American countries and, of course, Caribbean, that for some the traditional sledding and ice-skating at Christmas time was replaced with roller skating as there is no ice in the southern hemisphere country where temperatures are usually in the high thirties in December.  Skating to Mass became so popular that the Government closes the streets until 8am in the morning so that families can skate safely together and this happens on the 9 days in the run up to Christmas with a Mass being held in the churches at 5am or 6am, the Mass of the Cockerel, which was the tradition from Spain on Day 14, so this is another influence from the migrants into Venezuela.  After the morning Mass families gather in the street or each others homes to share food, play music and dance. 

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 80% Superfine Merino (Damson, Violet, Cerulean), 20% Suri Alpaca (White).  In Venezuela some people skate to mass so between the 16th and 24th it's not uncommon for roads to be closed so that people can skate about in their roller blades and basically enjoy being outside during this time.  This has got Superfine Merino and Suri Alpaca so it's going to be very soft and the last time I saw colours like this was probably on a pair of roller blades.  A colour theme that is quite popular with skating.  All of the colours come from the Superfine Merino and Superfine is 18.5 microns which means it has a comfort factor of 99% and I would challenge anybody to find an itch in this.  The Suri Alpaca is the white that you see and because of the locks it has got a little bit more drape to it and there' not a huge amount in here but there is enough just to add a little bit of colour and also a little bit of texture to the blend as well.  In terms of spinning this will spin very quickly and it will make a very fine laceweight but if you do spin it to laceweight there is a chance you will loose all these colours so I'd probably suggest a slightly heavier yarn so you don't get everything mixed and muddied up.

My Thoughts

This is very nice and my kind of colours.  It's fine and soft and I am thinking that it there are not enough colours in this one to make an interesting Fibonacci spin so I might go with an over the fold spin to have splodges of colour or I may just draft it out and spin it and mix up the colours a little bit more.  I may work some other blue and purple Merino with this one to bulk it out a bit, I just don't know at this stage.  The camera on my phone struggled to capture all of the colours at the time and the colours came out too vivid but my proper Canon camera has done a great job.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards seem to be correct.  

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Blending the Purple Llandovery Whiteface Hill - Mist at Twlight

Yay, the last one!  Oh I really do ache now because it is tiring on the arms and shoulders loading up the blending hackle four times and dizzing off the blend, especially when you're using wool that you have stupidly managed to felt slightly during the dye process. I seriously need to look at my temperature probe in my dye kit, I'm positive it's on the fritz and I have tried changing the battery but that hasn't resolved the issue.  I think it's a damaged wire problem.  So, the Llandovery Whiteface Hill fleece that I dyed back in September.  I sorted out the additional fibres that I would be adding to all four lots of Llandovery Whiteface Hill back at that time and then dyed the lots of fleece colours to go with the additional fibres that I had chosen.  All of the additional fibres in the different colours are within a few grams of each other and I plan to use all of each bump of fibre so that the final fibre content won't be exactly the same for all four blends but will be very close.

The other fibres that I chose to put in this blend are, from left to right, top to bottom: 19g Tussah Silk in shade Twilight, 9g Trilobal Nylon in shade Violet, 9g Silk Noil in shade Sea Mist, 10g Hemp that I dyed myself in June 2023 using cold water dyes and finally 153g Llandovery Whiteface Hill fibre that I dyed in September.  I have decided to call this colourway "Mist at Twilight".

I discovered that I had somehow managed to felt the wool slightly during the dye process so I had a little bit of trouble getting it to open up again.  I didn't pre-comb this one again either.  I've ended up with 200g of a lovely unique blend ready to spin.

The fibre content of this one works out to be:

76.5% Llandovery Whiteface Hill wool
9.5% Tussah Silk
5% Hemp
4.5% Silk Noil
4.5% Trilobal Nylon