Polwarth - Australia

Polwarths are named after the county in southwest Victoria, Australia, where the breed was developed by Richard Dennis of Tarndwarncoort in 1880, whose father and uncles had emigrated to Australia from England. Originally, he called them "Dennis Comebacks". They are common in Australia and New Zealand and have made their way to South America, but they are known as "Ideals" there. They are also common in The Falkland Islands. Polwarths were developed by breeding Merino rams to Merino/Lincoln Longwool crossbred ewes in order to improve meat production whilst at the same time maintaining a high-quality fleece. This means that they are one-quarter Lincoln Longwool and three-quarters Merino. The Polwarth Sheepbreeder's Association of Australia was formed in 1918, and the studbook was closed in 1948; the breed is now classified as a conservation breed. Most of the Polwarths in Australia are now in the higher-rainfall regions of Southeastern Australia, where pastures have improved.

They are a medium-sized, predominantly polled breed of sheep (some do have horns) with rams weighing 66kg-80kg and ewes weighing 50kg-60kg. The fleeces weigh 4.1kg-5.9kg are even and soft and a pleasure to work with no matter how they come to you; as raw wool, clean fibre or yarn. They are really fine at 21-26 microns, due to the Merino input, but also longer, due to the Lincoln Longwool input, with staple lengths of 3-7 inches (7.5cm-18cm). The locks are dense with rectangular staples with flat or slightly pointed tips and well-defined crimp. Polwarth fibres fluff up immediately with washing, which has to be done with care if you don't want felt. They are mostly white but can be silver grey through to black and tan through to dark brown.

They produce beautiful and soft next-to-skin fibres. The white fleece takes dye really well, natural colours can be overdyed for interesting results. This breed is perfect for baby garments, due to its softness, but also has good drape, so lace shawls are good to make with this. It also has elasticity, resilience, and loft, so it will make quite bouncy yarns.

As with all fine wools, hot water is required to effectively remove the grease from the fleece of the Polwarth and do not let the water cool too much else the grease will be redeposited onto the fleece and will then be really problematical to remove. Spin from the lock, flick or comb. Combing is the best way to prepare this fleece. Carding can be done on the shorter fibres. Spritzing with water as you comb will control the static. Do not try to spin this fibre with freshly applied greasy hand cream, it will not like that. Make sure anything applied to your skin is well absorbed into the skin before you start work on this fleece. 

I brought this breed in as 100g of prepared fibre ready to spin in December 2020. I have processed some beautiful Polwarth from fleece in the past and you can find that post here and what I made from that yarn here.

This was a lovely spin, starting on 19th August and spun two singles, plying them on 21st August 2025.  It is one of the more naturally white of the white wools, many others lean heavily towards pale cream, but this breed is quite white.

I spun this as fine as I could, knowing that it would bounce up during the washing and setting the twist process.  It turned out as a 14wpi yarn of 98g/443m.

I didn't knit the project piece until 19th and 20th September 2025 and only used about 9g of the yarn.

This one is easy to read the lettering.