Kerry Hill DK yarn

Further to my post of a few days ago about spinning up the Kerry Hill fleece for the breeds project, I have now spun up the rest of the fleece and I spun it a little thicker and allowed it to be big and bouncy.

I have two skeins totalling 201g/479m of double knit weight yarn.

Kerry Hill Sheep

The first written record for the Kerry Hill Sheep dates back to 1809 in Powys, Wales and the breed takes its name from the village of Kerry, near to Newtown, close to the Welsh/English border. It is thought to have been developed from the local landrace breed with the Beulah Speckled Face with infusions of genetics from Shropshire bloodlines from just over the border in England.

The Kerry Hill 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 were once extremely numerous and then they declined before making a comeback in popularity in recent years.  They are found mostly in the Welsh Borders but can be found elsewhere

The Kerry Hill is a sturdy and adaptable medium build sheep with distinctive head markings.  It has a black nose and well defined black and white patches on the head and legs and black/black and white/white high set ears.  Both sexes are naturally polled.

They produce a medium size fleece of 2-3kg with a staple length of 2.5-5 inches (6-12.5cm) but usually around 4 inches.  The fleece is dense with locks that not particularly distinct but they can be separated out  by looking for the slightly pointed tips and pulling on them to release them from the mass. The fleece is clear white but will sometimes have dark fibres and small amounts of kemp, both of these are undesirable within the breed.  It has a small amount of lustre and will take dye beautifully.  

This fleece can be spun from teased locks, it can be carded or combed using Viking combs.  If the staple is long enough you can spin from the fold.  Spinning worsted style will make the most of the the slight shine and still produce a yarn with loft and warmth.  Spinning woollen style will give a more matte appearance and trap more air and produce extra warmth.  Yarns will be relatively lightweight for its thickness and they will bloom during the post-spin wash.

Yarns spun from Kerry Hill fleece are soft but hardwearing and makes reliable knitting yarns that are soft enough and durable enough for a wide range of everyday garments such as sweaters, hats, socks, mittens, blankets, pillows etc.

I have bought this breed in as an amount of raw fleece. It weighed 705g on arrival but there were some second cuts and lots of vegetable matter (VM).

Locks were 4 inches long

After I washed it it weighed 459g and after I combed it I was left with 268g of lovely hand combed nests.

My finished yarn is of good quality to the touch of the hand.  It is soft, with a slight crisp feel but has a lot of bounce and it definitely plumps up after it's washed so you need to spin it a little finer than you would normally do for your intended final yarn thickness.  My yarn is 61g/146m of sport weight.  My knitted piece for the project took 15g/36m so I have some left to do whatever with.  I also have the rest of the fibre to spin.

North Country Cheviot

There are three distinct Cheviot sheep breeds here in the UK.  The South Country Cheviot, The North Country Cheviot and the Brecknock Hill Cheviot.  All three varieties share distinctive looks: they have wool-free white faces, upright and perky ears, Roman noses, dark nostrils, and their eyes are ringed dark which makes them look like they are wearing eye-liner. All three then have their own distinguishing features and characteristics and they are different in size and whether they have horns or not.  Each have their own blog post so be sure to click on links within the posts to navigate between the three.

The North Country Cheviot sheep is a breed in its own right but was originally developed from the smaller South Country Cheviot sheep.

In 1791, Sir John Sinclair was tasked with improving the national stock and he selected the native long woolled hill sheep found in the Border's Cheviot Hills from all other breeds he had seen and he gave them the name of Cheviot (now known as the South Country Cheviot or Border Cheviot), the first time they had been named as a breed.  He believed they were the perfect mountain sheep in both form and fleece and so he took 500 of these Cheviots more than 300 miles north to his Langwell Estate in Ulbester, Caithness which is almost the most northern part of mainland Scotland.  It was a success and they flourished as they suited the terrain and so many more thousands were transported north over the following years.  They were crossed with Leicester Longwool and other rams and the breed developed into the bigger and slightly different North Country Cheviot.

Cheviot and Leicester sheep were exhibited at the Highland Show in 1831 and this was the "shop window" to a wider audience. Classes at the Royal, Paris and Smithfield Shows soon followed.  Due to many breeders improving further on this breed there are now three "types" within this breed: the Hill or Lairg, the Caithness and the Border, which I find really confusing given the fact the South Country Cheviot is also sometimes referred to as "The Border Cheviot".  My head hurts!  The wide variety types within the breed ensures that crossing rams are available to meet most conditions.

The North Country Cheviot is big, long, robust white sheep that is prolific with strong maternal qualities that are very alert and active and weighing in at 55-80kg for a ewe and 100-120kg for ram they are considerably larger than the South Country Cheviot .  They have wool-free white faces, upright and perky ears, Roman noses, dark nostrils and their eye are ringed dark which makes them look like they are wearing eye-liner. Both sexes are polled.  At the time of writing, the North Country Cheviot is in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 6: "Other UK Native Breeds" (over 3000) registered breeding ewes.  

The fleece is white, crisp and lustrous and generally weighs 2-3kg with a staple length of 3.5-6 inches (9-15cm).  The locks have rectangular staples with slightly pointed tips and a three dimensional crimp.  Breed associations specify no hair, kemp or coloured fibres should be in the ideal fleece.

This fleece can be carded if you have a shorter fleece or if you have a longer fleece it can be flicked or combed.  Takes dyes well and clearly.  The resulting yarns can be used for socks, sweaters and the like.  

I had a bit of trouble locating this breed as many clump all three Cheviot breeds under the umbrella name of "Cheviot" but I did finally manage to get a fleece or at least a part fleece from a lady who has them on her farm just outside of Halifax, West Yorkshire.

When it arrived it weighed 889g (which is why I think it is just a part fleece) and after sorting it, washing it and drying it weighed 659g.

I decided to comb all of this fleece and I got 398g of hand combed top from it that contained both long and short fibres.

I picked out about 100g and started spinning.  The rest can be blended with other fibres in the future perhaps.

My finished yarn is of medium quality to the touch of the hand and is 98g/176m.  It doesn't feel as soft as the South Country Cheviot, which technically I haven't spun yet, I spin that in about 3 weeks time but I'm a Dr Who fan and I've done some wibbly-wobbly timey-whimey stuff to come and update this post with information and add links to the other Cheviot breeds cos they don't just appear magically all by themselves you know.  My knitted piece for the project took 44g/80m so I have some left to do whatever with.

South Wales Mountain Sheep

The South Wales Mountain sheep has been around since the 20th century, or at least recognised as a separate breed since then, according to information from the British Wool Marketing Board.  Not to be confused with the Welsh Mountain (Pedigree) sheep, which whilst similar, is smaller and has a different type of fleece. They are sometimes referred to as a Nelson or a Glamorgan Welsh.  It has, for many years, been a self-contained sheep and a definite local type.

Ram and Ewe, both showing the distinct tan collar

The South Wales Mountain 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 are native to the hills of Glamorgan, Gwent and South of the Brecon Beacons.

They are the largest of all of the Welsh Mountain breeds.  They are a hardy breed that are able to survive harsh weather.  They have a white head with tan markings on the face and legs, which are free of wool, and a black nose.  The rams have horns whilst the ewes are polled.  They have a distinctive tan/brown collar.

They produce a medium size fleece of 1.25-2kg that is dense with blocky staples with short tapering tips and contains a lot of kemp throughout the fleece. The staple length is 2-7 inches (5-17.5cm) 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.  Combing will remove the majority of the kemp.  If you leave the kemp in and spin it then you will get very scratchy yarn, if you remove it then you will get gorgeous soft wool

Yarns spun from South Wales Mountain fleece are good for next-to-skin garments, sweaters, hats. gloves and anything else you care to knit if you have removed the kemp.  If you have left the kemp in then it is only suitable for rugs, bags and other heavy use items.  

This was another breed that I had trouble getting hold of because of some confusion over the name and also the fact that some consider this breed and the Welsh Mountain (Pedigree) 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 was messaging and emailing the breed society for over 6 weeks with no response and eventually phoned the number provided and left a message. 

I eventually got a call back and was given a name and a phone number.  I called the number and had a good chat with Arthur Davies, who has won many Champion ribbons at shows, including the Royal Welsh Show, for his sheep.  His farm is located in Blackwood, Gwent Valley, on an exposed upland location and completely off-grid sitting approx 1200ft above sea level, rising to about 1440ft and winds can reach over 100mph.  These are the conditions that his sheep thrive in.  Although I only asked for 500g of fleece he sent me the whole fleece from a mature ewe that has recently reared a lamb and despite me badgering him to let me pay him, he has refused any payment for this and the postage cost. 

On arrival it was just under 1.7kg but after skirting and removing a bit of cotted fleece it was 1389g before washing and 1169g after washing.

Lots and lots of kemp, mostly white, but with red kemp down towards one end, most likely what makes the tan coloured neck ruff tan. 

There is some lovely wool hidden amongst it, not a whole lot, but I will be combing this as usual so all of that kemp will go and I will be left with whatever wool is in there.

I put this into 3 large plastic bags for temporary storage as I worked on combing it, one bag for each layer of fleece on my hanging drier. I picked the lightest bag to work on first and 326g of kemp rich fleece became 65g of fairly soft hand combed nests and it took me a couple of days to get that amount.

This clearly shows the waste compared to how much lovely soft wool I got from it

I was going to throw the rest of this fleece in the bin, as I had enough for the project, but the wool content is so soft that I feel its worth the hard work to remove the kemp. I did find a really small amount of hair in the last bag of fleece but it was really only about a handful and seemed out of place amongst the rest of the fleece.

All in all I got 248g of lovely soft wool from the original dry clean fleece of 1169g, which is about 21% yield.  It's not a lot but it is really, really nice.

My finished yarn is of good quality to the touch of the hand and there is no prickly feeling whatsoever because I removed all of the kemp to uncover just the pure wool.  I actually got 3 skeins from the fleece, two that weigh about 90g and one that was about 65g and in total there was 249g/562m of sport weight yarn. My knitted piece for the project took 43g/81m so I have a nice amount left to do whatever with.

Quick comparison of the Downs Breeds

Now that I have finished working on the Downs family of sheep for the British Breeds Project I noted that a lot of the sheep in that family look the same or so similar that it is easy to confuse one breed for another.

I know that some are different sizes and each have become adapted/been bred for the specific landscape/climate/weather conditions of the area in which they were developed. 

I'm going to go into an depth written comparison here as I have already written up what information I could find on each of the breeds but a visual side by side comparison of their overall visual appearance (but not their size in relation to one another) is a good start.  The Southdown and the Suffolk definitely stand out from the other four, of which the Oxford appears to be the only one with 4 woolly legs.

Suffolk Sheep

The Suffolk sheep is part of the "Downs family" of sheep.  They were developed in the Bury St Edmunds area by crossing Southdown rams with original pre-extinction Norfolk Horn ewes and were originally referred to as "Southdown Norfolks" but this was finally changed some 60 years after Arthur Young, author of the 1797 book called "General View of Agriculture in the County of Suffolk", wrote "These ought to be called the Suffolk breed, the mutton has superior texture, flavour, quantity and colour of gravy". Actually, they were not known by the name of Suffolk until around 1859.  They were recognised as a pure breed in 1810.  In fact the improved Southdown was cross bred 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 other Downs breeds: Dorset Down, Hampshire Down, Oxford, Shropshire and Suffolk.

The Suffolk sheep, at the time of writing, is in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 6: "Other UK Native Breeds" (over 3000) registered breeding ewes.  Breed numbers in the UK in the 1980's were around 500,000 but by 2020 this had dropped to around 14,000. Suffolks are usually found across the entirety of the UK and around the world and are a leading breed in the production of meat.  

The Suffolk is a large build sheep with a black head, black legs, black ears and both sexes are polled (hornless). The legs should be woolled to the knees and hocks.

They produce a good size fleece of 1.8kg-3.5kg in weight  with a staple length of 2-3.5 inches (5-9cm).  The fleece dense with short blocky staples that may be hard to distinguish from one another.  There is no hair or kemp in the fleece from this breed. The fleece should be white and free from dark fibres.**

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

**There is a statement in the Fleece & Fibre Sourcebook (published 2011) about there being a processed fibre sold as "Grey Suffolk" that demonstrates very few of the qualities and characteristics of Suffolk wool and they traced it back as far as they could but could not determine exactly what it was.  

I too had purchased this "Grey Suffolk" in a multi-British breed pack from one of my usual suppliers (who I have since found out gets a lot of their fibres from a larger supplier that I use) when I first started collecting fleece and pre-prepared fibre of various British breeds.  After reading this comment just before I started spinning, it stopped me in my tracks, and I decided not to spin this "Grey Suffolk" and I got in touch with the Suffolk Breed Society who confirmed to me that there is no such thing as a Grey Suffolk.  All Suffolk sheep are white.  

I also contacted the larger supplier that I use, who only sell Suffolk in this grey type, to inform them that there is no such thing as a Grey Suffolk and to ask them if they know what it actually is and to challenge them politely on the description as it is not a true representation of the breed.  It took a bit of time but they got back to me and told me that it is 80% Suffolk Wool/20% Half-bred Wool and they have now changed their description to state this.  I am surprised that there is as much as 80% Suffolk wool in the blend though as it really is quite grey but at least I have been useful in making sure that the Suffolk breeds stops being mis-represented, from this supplier at least. They still don't sell Suffolk in the natural white form though.

The is "Grey Suffolk", it contains kemp and other stuff that is not in a Suffolk fleece

So, I had to find a new source of Suffolk fleece or pre-prepared fibre. I found some being sold on Ebay by a young-ish female farmer (in her 20's) and so I bought and paid for 300g of raw Suffolk fleece plus delivery charge. I won't name and shame her because I'm a grown up but I will explain what happened because I still can't quite believe it. What arrived was just 50g of raw fleece.  I politely queried her error and was met with a tirade of abuse and attitude so I politely pointed out her legal responsibilities under the Long Distance Selling Regulations that she entered into when putting her sheep fleece up for sale on the internet and was met with a refusal to correct her error as that would mean she would be out of pocket as she would have to pay for delivery costs again and also a refusal to refund me for the 250g of fleece that she didn't send.  She couldn't see that she was committing theft/fraud so I had to put my case to Ebay/Paypal and I won, in part due to her mother getting involved and apologising profusely for her daughters behaviour, WOW, that was the unexpected part!

Shall we get on to the fleece then?  The 50g of fleece that she had sent me was not all that great to be honest and certainly did not live up to the boastfulness of the ribbon and award-winning descriptions of the sheep, flock and young farmer/shepherdess that I had read about. I think winning a few ribbons had gone to her head and caused some kind of disillusionment or God complex.

50g of dirty fleece with lots of black hairs

The same washed fleece with lots of black hairs

Just washing this fleece dropped the weight from 50g to 35g and I had to comb it yet so knowing there wouldn't be enough I managed to find some washed fleece for sale with the lady I've been getting quite a lot of the smaller amounts of raw, washed and pre-prepared breeds from.  I don't know why I didn't check her shop first, maybe I did and she hadn't got any in at the time.  Her stock is always changing because she gets it direct from the farmer and prepares it herself so it depends when the shearers can get round to the farm and when she can wash and dry it etc.

50g of washed fleece, very few black hairs

Sourcing this breed has been a bit of a nightmare.  Firstly the "Grey Suffolk" issue, then the "I've won ribbons so I'm a God and better than you" farmer and now, thankfully, I have been saved on my third attempt at bringing this breed in.

After combing both lots of the fleece separately, I got 25g of mediocre quality hand combed top from the first lot and 35g of lovely quality hand combed top from the second lot.  I could see that they were different shades of white and so I spun them separately and then plied them together.

Left: Mediocre wool from the farmer with the "God complex"
Right: Lovely wool from a regular supplier of mine

My finished yarn is of medium quality to the touch of the hand and you can feel the slight coarseness caused by the poorer quality of the first bit of fleece I bought in but overall its not too bad and I have 53g/102m. My knitted piece for the project took 19g/37m so I have some left to do whatever with.