Welsh Mountain (Pedigree) Sheep

The Welsh Mountain (Pedigree) sheep has been in the Welsh Hills since the 13th century.  Not to be confused with the South Wales Mountain sheep, which whilst similar, is larger and has a different type of fleece.

The Welsh Mountain (Pedigree) sheep, at the time of writing, is in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 3: Vulnerable (500-900) registered breeding ewes. They are are usually found in the South and West regions of Wales.

The Welsh Mountain (Pedigree) is a medium build sheep with ewes weighing 45kg-55kg and rams weighing 75kg-90kg.  They are hardy, thrifty, versatile and docile and can thrive on area with poor grazing and heavy rainfall.  They have a broad forehead, white or slightly tanned face and legs, but a black muzzle/nose and black hooves. Head and legs are free of wool.  Rams grow curly horns whilst the ewes are polled.

They produce a medium size fleece of 1.25-2kg that is dense with blocky staples with short tapering tips and contains little/no kemp and it is fine so weavers and spinners love it.  The fleece may contain some coarser coloured fibres, red kemp and black fibres and these are undesirable in the fleece.  The staple length is 2-6 inches (5-15cm) and the average micron count is 35+. Any kemp that is in the fleece won't take the dye very well but the wool will take colour well.

This fleece can be spun from teased locks, it can be carded or combed.  Its quite fine and is almost kemp free.

Yarns spun from Welsh Mountain (Pedigree) fleece are good for next-to-skin garments, sweaters, hats. gloves and anything else you care to knit.  

This was another one that was hard to track down to specifics because of some confusion over the name and also the fact that some consider this breed and the South Wales Mountain sheep to be one and the same breed but they're not, the fleeces are so very different.  I also encountered a lack of response from breed societies, possibly caused by Covid-19 and with people losing their lives to this virus.  I started trying to make contact on 8th April 2021 and never got a response and then I discovered a second breed society for this breed with different contacts and so I e-mailed them on 30th May 2021 and I got a positive reply about a week later.  After determining that as I thought, there were no society members near me, I was informed by the contact person that her sister keeps the breed and that shearing was about to take place.  By mid-June the fleece was on its way to me and I had made payment.  I don't know what farm this is from but thank you Mona Williams for sending me some of your beautiful fleece.

So, as you can guess, I bought this breed in as 500g of raw fleece that had been sheared during the second week of June 2021. There is very, very little kemp, its gorgeous!

500g of unwashed fleece

After washing it weighs 421g

I have 236g of hand combed top

Work in progress

My finished yarn is of good quality to the touch of the hand and is soft and squishy.  I have 214g/397m.  My knitted piece for the project only took 29g/54m so I have some left to do whatever with.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2021 Stage 21

The Cycling: Stage 21 is 108.4km long and starts in Chatou and ends in with a sprint on the Champs-Élysées.  All eyes are on Mark Cavendish as this is his last chance this year to beat Eddy Merckx record of stage wins.  He went for it on the final sprint for the finish line but found himself boxed in by other riders and finished in third place.  Wout van Aert won the stage.  

Team Challenge: "This is it; the final day!  Well done to everyone who has come along on this spinning journey with  us!  The time has come to don your yellow, grab your finish-line-fluff and spin your way to victory!

The final challenge of Tour de Fleece 2021 is to spin something yellow or something that contains yellow.  If you would like, you can also post a finish-line picture of you, your wheel and your work this month!".

What I planned to do and what I achieved:  It's very hot today.  I have the fans on and I am still melting.  I have spun some Ryeland today that I combed a little while ago from a purchase of 200g of raw fleece that weighed 150g after it was washed and 98g after it was combed.  It's really nice.  I got  238m, which gives another 714m towards the team total.  My contribution to the team total amounts to 11,196m

My final tour photo of everything that I've spun on the tour contains 18 skeins from 13 different British breeds, leaving me 10 breeds left to spin, 5 of which I'm still waiting to be delivered to me in fleece form, so have lots to do yet.  Unfortunately, the photo is taken in artificial light so you can't really see the difference in colour and texture as clear as you would in natural daylight, but its all very different.

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I will be pushing on with the spinning of the last 10 breeds for my British Breeds project, still waiting for 5 of them to come in from the farmers but I can get on with the knitting part if I'm left waiting.

A final team total was given on 26th July 2021 by the Team Organisers and as a team we have spun 261,939.01m!  This is the equivalent of 163 miles!

Ryeland Sheep

Ryeland Sheep were developed by Monks of Leominster, near Hereford, during the 12th century, and were so named after the Ryegrass pastures that they grazed on.  This is another one of the oldest breeds in Britain and used to be one of the finest fleeced, rivalling that of the Spanish Merinos at that time.  It is thought by some historians that Ryelands and Merinos are descendants of the same ancestral breed of sheep, with them having arrived in Britain with the Romans. By the late 18th century Ryelands had been "improved" for meat quality by being crossed with other breeds but this meant that they lost some of the quality from their fleeces.

The Ryeland sheep, at the time of writing, is in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 6: "Other UK Native Breeds (over 3000) registered breeding ewes.  They are found throughout the UK but also in Australia and New Zealand.  The Australian bloodline is much like that of the UK in terms of the fleece quality whilst that of New Zealand produce heavier, coarser fleece.  Those in the UK are the only ones that have the gene for coloured fleece and they can be found in White, black or shades of grey and also in browns.  I've spun coloured Ryeland back in my early days of spinning.

The Ryeland is a relative small build sheep with mature ewes weighing around about 64kg and rams around about 87kg.  They are compact, robust and adaptable with wool on their faces and legs. Both sexes are naturally polled (don't grow horns).

They produce a medium size fleece of 2-3kg that is dense, soft and springy.  The staple length is 2-5 inches (5-12.5cm) with an average micron count of 25-28.  The locks are dense, blocky and may have very short pointed tips

This fleece can be spun from picked and teased locks.  Carding will make the most of the the lightness, loft and elasticity with woollen-spun yarns being fluffy and cuddly and will make items that you just want to snuggle into and never put down.  Longer fleece can be combed and the worsted-style spinning will produce a lightweight yarn with smooth surface, that is more compact and durable.  

Yarns spun from Ryeland fleece are definitely suited nest-to-skin garments, unless you have a New Zealand fleece.

I have bought this breed in as 215g of unwashed Ryeland fleece which has washed up lovely and white and is very soft.

After it was washed and dried it weighed 150g and after it was combed I was left with 98g of beautifully soft hand combed nests.

My finished yarn is of good quality and soft and bouncy to the touch of the hand.  I have 92g/223m of sport weight squishy-ness.  My knitted piece for the project took 13g/32m so I have some left to do whatever with.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2021 Stage 20

The Cycling: Stage 20 is only 30km long as it is Time Trial day and starts in Libourne and ends in Saint-Émilion.  No climbs, just rolling terrain.  Wout van Aert won the stage.  

Team Challenge: "The cyclists have their second individual time trial today.  For the first one at the beginning of Tour de Fleece we spun under tight time constraints - now we're trying something else.

Your challenge today is to spin 10g of fibre as fine as you possibly can.  No plying, just singles.".

What I planned to do and what I achieved:  I'm not doing the challenge today.  I've spun Whiteface Dartmoor today.  I have a huge fleece, it was originally just under 6kg on arrival but I've just used a relatively tiny amount that I have combed and I got 117m of sport weight yarn, which is another 351m for the team total.

Whiteface Dartmoor Sheep

The Whiteface Dartmoor, one of the English Longwool breeds of sheep, was developed and lives on Dartmoor, a National Park in Devon in the Southwest of England.  They are one of two breeds of sheep who live there, the other being the Greyface Dartmoor.  Whilst they are similar in many ways, they are two completely different breeds of sheep.  According to the British Wool Marketing Board the breed was established in the UK during the 17th century.

The Whiteface Dartmoor sheep, at the time of writing, is in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust Category 5: Minority (1500-3000) registered breeding ewes.  They are found mostly in the South West of England.

They are a relatively old breed that lived in a very small segment of Dartmoor, around the village of Widecombe-in-the-Moor. During the time when "breed development" was all the rage and because they were so far off the beaten track and so isolated they did not undergo the improvement by cross-breeding that the Greyface Dartmoor did and so the Whiteface Dartmoor have retained their similarities to the old West Country Moorland sheep that they originated from.  (Considering the fact that the Greyface Dartmoor is supposedly the "improved" of the two, from my perspective and the fleece/fibre that I have, the Greyface is the nastiest fleece I have had the displeasure of spinning and the Whiteface is actually really nice in comparison).

The Whiteface Dartmoor is a small-medium build sheep with a whitehead that is free of wool, black nose and white legs. Only the rams have horns and they are pretty sensational horns!  

They produce a good size fleece that weighs 5.5 to 7kg in weight and can be up to as much as 9.5kg for a large ram.  The staple length can be anything from 6-8 inches inches long (15-20cm). The fleece is long, strong, curly and lustrous but if you're looking for softness, turn around and run a mile because softness does not belong on a sheep that lives in some of the harshest and most extreme weather conditions of the UK. 

This fleece can be picked and flicked or combed but make sure you tease the locks apart and open before you mount them onto the combs and do not overload the combs.  You will need to take very long strokes and keep your hands very far apart due to sheer length of the staples.  The fibres are so long and coarse that if you tug too hard on them you can actually cut your hands on it.  Its very slippery too and will both clump and drift apart if you cling to it.  Takes dye well and because of the lustre you will get shine and depth.  Any yellowing will affect the tone of the dye.

Yarns spun from Whiteface Dartmoor fleece are definitely suited to hardwearing textiles such as blankets, rugs and carpets.  The locks can be used unspun but woven into a rug too to make a fleece style rug.  My Whiteface Dartmoor is much nicer than the Greyface Dartmoor but I still would not use it next-to-skin.

I have bought this breed in as a whole fleece.  I didn't know exactly how big it was going to be because it was sold "by the fleece" and not by weight so I was expecting it to be between 3.5kg and 5kg.  What arrived was a whopping 5.9kg.  OMG, it's huge!  It hadn't been skirted and there were, lets call them "sheep's maltesers", that rolled out of this huge fleece as I unrolled it and tried to make sense of what went where.  Thankfully they were dry and after skirting, washing and drying I have 3,479g of fleece to sort further and comb.

The whole fleece

Close up of the muddy locks and then the drier, curlier locks

Washed and waiting to dry

The process of combing

Hand combed fibre nests ready to be spun

My finished yarn is of medium quality for a longwool, has lustre and softer than some of the longwools that I have already spun but you can feel the prickly hair and definitely not suitable for next to skin.  I have 102g/117m.  My knitted piece for the project took 77g/89m so I have a small amount left to do whatever with, plus a whopping big fleece that still needs to be prepared.

Southdown Sheep

The South Downs, an area of about 68 miles long of chalk hills along the English Channel that encompasses the counties of Hampshire, West Sussex and East Sussex, that has been home to short woolled, dark-faced, speckle-legged sheep since Medieval times named after the area in which they lived but their breed name is one word, not two.  In the late 1700's several breeders improved these sheep for better mutton production and by 1800 the improved Southdown sheep was the most important breed in England.  Originally they were quite small but became larger after they were improved and breeders then used the improved Southdown to cross breed with other native breeds in the downland counties and the improved Southdown bloodlines runs through all other Downs breeds, making the Southdown the grand ancestor of all of the Downs breeds: Dorset Down, Hampshire Down, Oxford, Shropshire and Suffolk.

The Southdown sheep, at the time of writing, is in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust Category  6:"Other UK Native Breeds" (over 3000) registered breeding ewes.  

Southdowns are usually found in the South East of England, where they originate, but there are specialist flocks across the UK and in other parts of the world too and they have developed into three different sized types within the breed: the standard sized that is still used in commercial agriculture to produced lamb and mutton and two smaller varieties that are often raised as pets and for fleece, the Baby Doll Southdown and the Miniature or Toy Southdown, the later being less than 24 inches tall at the withers.

The Southdown is a medium build sheep with a mouse-brown face and legs covered in wool, small ears that are also covered in wool, but are wool free around the eyes and across the bridge of the nose and they have black nostrils.  Both sexes are polled.  They are docile and easy to handle with affectionate dispositions.

They produce a medium size white fleece of 1.5kg-2kg with a staple length of 2-3 inches (5-7.5cm).  The fleece is dense, relatively short with blocky staples that my be hard to distinguish from each other.  The wool is really fine and is one of the finest in Britain.  The fleece should be white and free from dark fibres but some may occur.  Some breeders have cultivated the dark-fibre genes and produced sheep with full coats of coloured wool so you may find coloured Southdown fleece but its not the norm.

Shorter fleeces can be carded, longer ones will want to be flicked or combed.  Keep the draft light and open and the twist moderate to maintain the loft and springy character of the wool.  The wool is "chalky" but does take dye nicely but the colours won't be lustrous but neither will they be flat.  Has enough crimp to be nicely elastic and it doesn't felt very well.  

Yarns spun from Southdown fleece are great for socks, mittens, hats, sweaters and the finer fleeces will be great for next-to-skin items.

I have bought this breed in as pre-prepared fibre in a box containing 50g each of four British Breeds and because of this you can see a few dark fibres that have transferred from the other breeds in the box and I picked them off before I spun the yarn.

My finished yarn is of medium quality to the touch of the hand and has a nice amount of bounce but not too much and is 50g/107m.  My knitted piece for the project only took 23g/46m so I have a small amount left to do whatever with.  It certainly gives good stitch definition.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2021 Stage 19

The Cycling: Stage 19 is 207km long and starts in Mourenx and ends in Libourne.  The route is a transitional stage with a descent and just one Category 4 climb, rolling terrain and one uncategorised climb before being mostly flat.  A big crash just a few minutes in but no one was hurt.  Matej Mohorič won the stage.  

Team Challenge: "We're getting in to the last few days, chaps!  The flat stage today is perfect for those who are looking to sprint to the finish.  If you're feeling a bit sprinty, why not don the green jersey (we know you've earned this!) and grab something green.

Today's challenge; either spin something green or take a picture of as many green things as you can gather in one place (who said things had to be serious?)".

What I planned to do and what I achieved:  Just a small skein today.  I chose to spin some South Down, just a 50g bump that I got in a Breeds Sample box that I got from Fibre Hut.  I spun it sport weight and I got 107m from it, adding another 321m to the team total.  These are pre-wash measurements.

As for the challenge, I took photos of my back garden, specifically the raised vegetable bed.

Lots of green things in the garden right now.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2021 Stage 18

The Cycling: Stage 18 is 129.7km long and starts in Pau and ends in Luz Ardiden.  The route is mountainous and includes two category 4 climbs.  Tadej Pogačar won the stage.  

Team Challenge: "It is the last mountainous stage today, and we'll see who gets crowned King of the Mountain!  

The challenge for today is to spin something red and white - getting the polka dots in there could be a bit tricky, though!  If you're feeling a bit arty, now would be a good time to try a white yarn with some red beads...".

What I planned to do and what I achieved:  Motoring on through spinning for my British Breeds project I've picked up the Hill Radnor today.  100g bump of pre-prepared fibre and I got a sport weight yarn 172m long, adding another 516m to the team total.

I noticed that the finished yarn was considerably darker than many of the other natural white's that I have spun and I just so happened to have the skein of Whitefaced Woodland, that I spun the other day, to hand to do a comparison.   

Washed Whitefaced Woodland on the left, unwashed Hill Radnor on the right.

There is another little speed bump in the road with my British Breeds project, having learned in the last 48 hours that is no such thing as a grey Suffolk sheep and that fibre sold as Grey Suffolk is actually nothing like that of the fibre off a Suffolk sheep, which only come in a creamy white, and I've had that confirmed by the Suffolk Breed Society, no such thing as a grey Suffolk.  I am confused as to why this is all that is available from suppliers.  This fact is also mentioned in the Fleece and Fibre Sourcebook and yet I can't find white Suffolk as a pre-prepared fibre anywhere, it's all grey.

I'm waiting on 300g of fleece direct from a farmer so at least I know that its white Suffolk.  .

Hill Radnor Sheep

There is mystery surrounding the origins of the Hill Radnor sheep as there seems to be little to no written evidence of the sheep's existence until more recently but nonetheless these sheep have been around for centuries.  Localised to a fairly isolated area there has been few or no inclusions of outside bloodlines.  It is slightly larger, rangier and has a finer fleece than other Welsh mountain breeds.  Early in its history it was often referred to as the Radnor Tanface.  A breed society/association was formed in 1949 and in 1955 they settled on the name of Hill Radnor.

The Hill Radnor sheep, at the time of writing, is in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 4: At Risk (900-1500) registered breeding ewes.  Traditionally the breed was native to the Welsh counties of Radnorshire, Breconshire, Monmouthshire and just over the border into the English county of Herefordshire.  In 1993 they were in category 3: Vulnerable (500-900) registered breeding ewes and so have progressed upwards since then with small flocks outside of the traditional areas and the breed association is hoping to move up into category 5 fairly soon.

The Hill Radnor is a hardy, heavy, docile sheep.  It has a grey to grey-tan head and legs which are free from wool.  The muzzle is lighter, usually and off-white.  Rams are usually horned but can be naturally polled.  Ewes are always polled.  

They produce a medium size creamy-white fleece of 2-2.5 kg that is dense and springy and contains very little kemp and may or may not contain an amount of dark fibres.  The fleece is fine for a hill breed but feels slightly crisp.  The locks are mostly rectangular with short pointed tips but can be narrow with visible crimp.  The staples are usually 3-5 inches (7.5-12.5cm).  Dye produces clear colours with a matte finish.

This fleece can be picked and spun from the lock, carded or combed, depending on the length.  The fibres draft easily.  Any kemp that may be present will either drop out or can be picked out during spinning.

Yarns spun from Hill Radnor fleece can be used for next-to-skin garments but some may be too coarse and better suited to outerwear.  Any kemp or dark fibres that are left in will produce subtly tweedy yarns.  

I have bought this breed in as 100g of pre-prepared fibre.

My finished yarn is of good quality to the touch of the hand and both sturdy and bouncy and definitely suitable for next-to-skin wear.  I have 96g/153m of sport weight yarn.  My knitted piece for the project took 34g/58m so I have some left to do whatever with.