Ryafår - Sweden

Ryafår are an endangered conservation landrace sheep breed from Sweden that has old Norwegian Spelsau (Gammelnorsk Sau) sheep in their heritage.  At the beginning of the 20th century, when industrialism took hold, the Ryafår found it difficult to compete with other wool-producing breeds of sheep and numbers dwindled but thankfully the curly shiny wool is needed to make weatherproof coats for the shepherds so that breed was not allowed to die out completely.

Beautiful 18th century lustrous yarns and textiles from the old Ryafår were studied and the quality found seemed to be missing from modern land breeds. The driving force behind the rediscovery of the Ryafår was Axel Nilsson, director of the Röhssaka Museum. He concluded that this must have been an old breed of sheep in the Nordic countries that left this material. In 1915, he came into contact with Emma Zorn in Mora who discovered that the hill people in Mora, Orsa and Gagnef had a trim on their leather jackets that was made of a beautiful sheepskin that it came from the breed Axel was looking for.

The journey around Dalarna began and they found remnants of the Ryafår breed in Skattungbyn and on Sollerön. 15 ewes were selected and purchased.  They were placed with the Gothenburg family Mannheimer, where Maria Mannheimer saved the breed from extinction through succesful breeding work.  The conservation work was then followed up by the Wåhlstedts in the 1920s.  Soon the Swedish Sheep Breeding Association also took care of the breed and established a national studbook. 

The ewes are known for their good mothering qualities and ability to find food in difficult terrain.  They are medium-sized and hardy and have good meat texture and plenty of wool.  The tail, head and legs are wool free but covered in short, shiny hair.  Rams weigh 70kg-100kg and stand 75cm at the withers and ewes weigh 60kg-80kg and stand 70cm at the withers.  Both sexes are polled.

They are a double coated breed and the wool is long and can be 6 inches (15cm) long on a three month old lamb and up to 12 inches (30cm) long on an adult.  The two coats make up around 50% each on the fleece. Most are white, with some grey, black and brown individuals.  The colours should be solid without any white markings or coloured spots. The wool grows fast and has long straight guard hairs along with some shorter underwool.  Whatever you make will be durable.  Can be spun or felted.

The wool of the Ryafår has unique properties that are appreciated by many, especially by hand spinner and other artisans of handicraft.  The wool is of high quality, fairly straight, strong and durable and yet soft.  There is high lustre and good pile formation.  The coats can be separated and spun to make weather proof items from the outercoat and warm snuggly items from the undercoat.  The back of a shorn fleece can be felted on the cuts and made into a rug.

In 1978, the breed association Föreningen Ryafåret was formed.  The breeding work includes a special sampling of the Rya sheep and wool samples are taken from all animals that are to be used in breeding work to ensure that the properties of the wool are maintained and improved.

In 2017, there were 54 herds of sheep consisting of 72 rams, 732 ewes and 1551 lambs registered in Elitlam.  In 2021 there were 491 registered breeding ewes, which means that the numbers are decreasing.  

I bought this breed in as 94g 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 still empty as of January 2026. 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. 

I washed this on 23rd May 2022 and the water turned a very weird milk mid-grey kind of colour, not brown like with other fleece that are dirty and muddy, this was a definite weird grey colour.  Once it was dry it weighed 89g.  I combed it almost immediately on 30th May 2022 and I got 64g of hand combed top from it that still has a good amount of the guard hairs left in it because I felt that if I took any more guard hairs out then I wouldn't have enough left for spinning.  The undercoat is much softer and a darker colour to the coarser and lighter coloured outercoat.

I split the fibre into two equal amounts, spun singles and made a 2-ply yarn.  It was difficult to spin and keep both fibre types together as the two fibre types were behaving like opposing magnets and trying to keep away from each other. It was a constant battle and the resulting yarn is stiff, hairy, prickly and difficult to work with. It is fingering weight and I got 61g/162m of it.

I finished the knitted piece on 13th January 2026 but the lettering is incredibly difficult to see and read.

Charollais - France

Charollais sheep were developed in the Burgundy region of east-central France in the 19th century (1800's) when shepherds crossed imported British Leicester Longwools with their native landrace sheep.  The breed was not officially recognized by the French government until 1974 and then began promoting the fast-growing, muscular breed.  The first export of this breed from France to Britain took place in 1976 and then it was exported to Ireland in 1990, exported to Canada from Britain in 1994 and from there into the USA.   

This is primarily a meat sheep and little care or thought is given to the fleece, which is a shame because they grow fine to medium fleece that are dense but quite short.  They are a medium-large sheep with a pinkish-brown wool free head usually covered in pale coloured hair and both sexes are polled.  The rams weigh about 135kg and ewes about 90kg. Ewes are docile and good tempered.

Average fleece weights are 2-2.5kg and the staple length is usually 1.5-2.5 inches (3.8-6.5cm) with micron counts of 23-30.5 microns.  The locks are rectangular, almost square, due to the shortness.

 

I bought this breed in as 100g of commercially produced top way back in December 2020, when I first started shopping for fibres and fleece for my British Breeds Project and knowing that I would probably do one for Non-British Breeds afterwards.  Also I have not seen any pure breed Charollais fleece for sale at any time since, although I've not been looking specifically for that having purchased this top and I certainly don't want to buy a whole fleece due to the financial cost, storage space issues and the amount of work it takes to prepare and spin a whole fleece by hand especially when the breed has a noted shortness of the staple that I would find difficult to prepare using my wool combs.

The information from the retailer of this is top states that fibre from this breed is dense and springy, its natural brightness makes it a fantastic dye base.  Micron count is 30-33 and the staple length is 80mm (3 inch).  So, the micron count of this seems to be a bit higher than information I can find on this breed elsewhere, so this particular one is not quite as soft as it could potentially otherwise be and the staple length is a little longer than the stated normal range, but that's not unheard off.  Whilst there is information online about this sheep breed most of it is the same repeated information (and I've also just repeated much of it too) and its all about how good it is for meat production, its usefulness as a terminal sire to increase lamb size and profitability and there doesn't seem to be anyone blogging about or promoting the wool of this breed, no one singing its praises or showing off how they prepared the fleece or how they dyed it or anything.  Is no one really enthusiastic about the Charollais in terms of its wool?

I split the commercial top into two lengths and pre-drafted it before spinning a two ply yarn, beginning on 23rd December and finishing on 25th December 2025. I did have to remove some thick hairs and kemp like fibres from this one and the finished yarn is quite crisp and I wouldn't use it next-to-skin. I got a fingering weight yarn that is 96g/399m.

The knitted piece only used 12g of the yarn and I finished knitting it on 10th January 2026.

Finnish Landrace - Finland

Finnish Landrace, also known as Finn sheep or just Finn for short, is an ancient breed from Finland kept for milk, meat, wool and vegetation management as they can feed on rough pasture.  Their milk is often used in cheesemaking. They are known to be one of the most prolific sheep in the world having three, four or five lambs at a time but they can have as many a nine.  The lambs are born small but grow fast and they mature early, being able to be mated themselves at six months old, although they are usually older than this when they first mate.  They are often used in cross breeding programmes to improve lambing rates. 

They are a medium-side breed with rams weighing around 68-91kg and ewes weighing 54 - 82kg.  They are usually polled and the face and legs are free of wool.  They are predominantly white but can come in a range of colours similar to those of the Shetland breed.  The second most common colour is black or black piebald.  Grey, brown and fawn shades can be quite rare.  It seems that availability of colour can depend greatly on where in the world the Finn sheep are being raised.  For instance, it seems that in Australia, white is the only colour available and the wool is longer and softer because they have been bred to have these traits through selective breeding.  This breed can have markings such as a white tail tip, white stockings, white crown, panda-like eye spots.

Finns' fleeces and their wool, often described as silky, is more sleek than fluffy.  It has a nice amount of crimp that gives yarns spun from it a pleasant resilience, although it can't be described as springy.  Most Finn fibre is white with a warm cast to it, but coloured fibre can be found if you search hard enough.  Almost all Finns are single-coated, although their heritage means a double-coated fleece may occasionally appear.  

Finn sheep fleece weighs 1.8-3.6kg with a yield of 50-70%, often on the high end.  The staple lengths are 7.5cm-15cm (3-6 inches), and the count is 24-31 microns.  The fleece is open, and the locks can be separated easily.  The locks are slightly pointed and occasionally have sun-damaged tips.  Shorter locks can be carded, but Finn has the perfect staple lengths for combing and combing makes the most of the lustre.  You can fluff out the locks and spin straight from them, or with one of the longer fleeces, you might want to spin from the fold.  Finn is a lovely, easy-to-spin wool.

Finn is a versatile wool, being sturdy enough to wear well, and some of it is fine enough to be worn next to the skin. It's best to do a tickle test on your neck before you decide what to make with your yarn.  It's a good choice for sweaters, blankets and other snuggly garments.  The fibre's body and lustre make it a great choice for textured knit and purl patterns or woven laces, as well as for crisply defined colour patterns.  

 

I had a choice of two fibre lots that I could use for this project, both commercially prepared top that I already had in my stash.  I had to choose between 50g of white from a breed exploration box I bought in 2020 or 100g of brown that was part of the 2021 Advent Calendar.  I thought about it and I wasn't sure if 50g would make enough yarn to knit the name sample, it might but it would potentially be very tight, and I really don't want to be playing yarn chicken or running out just before I complete it.  Looking at the colours of the other breeds that are in this project, whilst there is a nice amount of different colours and textures, overall white is dominant making the decision to use the brown really easy.

The first thing I had to do was to split it into two and then pre-draft prior to spinning. There was a number of thick white hairs and kemp and I removed this as I worked, both in the pre-drafting and the spinning. It is a pleasant and easy fibre to spin and has spun up to nice and next-to-skin soft fingering weight yarn and I got 96g/306m from this spinning, which I done 21st to 23rd December 2025.

I knit the project piece in the new year, once the Christmas decorations had been packed away, starting on the day that my youngest returned to University and I was knitting whilst the carpet fitters were putting the new carpet on the stairs and landing, which means the renovation of that area is finally finished in full now.  I finished knitting on 7th January 2026.

The stitch definition is pretty good, the words can definitely be read on this one.