Highlander - New Zealand

The Highlander breed was developed, or designed, by a genetics company in New Zealand in the 1990's.  It is a composite breed of Romney, Texel and Finnish Landrace, but didn't really "take off" in New Zealand, so they tried it here in the UK and it is now an established breed in its own right, which means farmers are breeding Highlander sheep to Highlander sheep and getting purebred Highlander lambs.  Initially, I found plenty of information online about this breed but it was all about technical farm breeding and management, about birth rates, survival, birth weights etc etc and some of these posts go back about 9 or 10 years so its been in the UK for quite a while, but not a thing about the fleece and fibre aspect of this breed such as staple lengths, micron counts and such like.  All I could find was that it is a medium-sized sheep that grows white wool.

Fast forward 5 years, since I purchased the small amount of washed fleece, and there is now a lot more information out there about the wool. 

The breed produces a medium-grade, high-bulk wool that hand-spinners find surprisingly soft, squishy and fun to work with. As it is a mix of NZ Romney, Finnish Landrace and Texel, the fleece balances the long staple durability of the Romney with the fine, crimpy loft of the Finn. 

Micron counts typically are 27 to 32 microns and the staple length is generally 3-5". It has a blocky lock structure with a disorganised, springy crimp, giving the fibre incredible loft, elasticity and a desirable squish factor. It has a natural bounce and a medium length. 

Carding embraces the disorganised crimp and makes a lofty yarn. The yarn will be springy and lofty, no matter how you spin it, so spin finer than you would normally to achieve your desired yarn thickness. The fibres are relatively "grabby" and do not require excessive twist to hold together, although worsted spinning does require more twist than woollen spinning; ensure that it feels firm but doesn't kink. Due to the bounce factor from the Finnish Landrace, the yarn will bloom once washed. Finished yarns are durable, resistant to pilling and ideal for hard-wearing outerwear, sweaters, blankets, socks and housewares. It is naturally a bright, creamy white that absorbs acid dyes beautifully.

I bought this breed in as 100g of washed fleece in July 2021 and I combed it on 28th May 2022, getting 63g of top from it.  It was sold to me as "A new sheep breed developed in New Zealand with flocks here in Britain.  A sheep developed for commercial flocks; these are much overlooked from a fibre perspective.  This is from a local Cotswold flock.  It's a lovely soft fleece, short-stapled 2-3 inches, snowy white with woolly fibres."

I spun this up over the 4th to 6th of June 2026 and it was really nice to spin up. I spun it as fine as I possibly could to allow for the bounce and the loft, so that I didn't end up with fat yarn that I wouldn't be able to use in the planned project. I achieved a fingering-weight yarn, 63g/317m, and it is really nice.

I had to wait to knit this up for my project, due to the constant high temperatures and heatwaves, but I was able to knit it quite quickly over two days and finishing on 23rd July 2026.

Värmlandsfår - Sweden

Värmlandsfår, also known as Värmland sheep and the Värmland Forest Sheep originate in Sweden.  They began from Bengt Sonesson's large herd in Osebol near Stöllet by the Klarälven river in northern Värmland.  He had taken over the sheep from his parents and he had long been interested in sheep "of the old stock" so he did not buy any rams of modern breeds. Instead, he expanded his small flock in the 1970s with a few animals that he found on various farms around the Klarälvsdalen valley, in Munkebol, Benteby and Branäs, all of which were of the "old stock".

When Bengt was growing up, the sheep of the entire village were kept together in the forest.  The sheep mixed with sheep from other villages, which ensured that there was always new blood in the flocks.  As a rule, no adult rams were kept, but the ram lambs were allowed to graze with the ewes before they were slaughtered in the autumn.  The lambs were then born early in the winter, often around Christmas.  The sheep were usually white, but sometimes there could be black lambs.  Some were grey or "yset" as they were called, and there could be brown sheep in the area.  Bengt remembers in his youth that his parents had a horned ewe.  The rams are horned or polled.  Polled rams were most common, but horned rams also occurred among the original sheep

During the years 1992-1996, two typical rams from Hälsingland and a small flock from Dalarna were also taken into the flock.  Lars Englund and Nils Dahlbeck had come across these during their travels when they were looking for "coloured rye sheep" and when the "horned sheep" project began.  Among other things, one of these rams ended up with Roger Strömborg, a good friend of Bengt Sonesson, who had sheep from  Bengt's herd for a long time.  Another small group of sheep from Anette Back Olsson in Lekvattnet, Värmland was taken into care.

Compared with a modern meat breed, Värmland would be considered small, but it is one of the largest-bodied breeds. It was once known as Skogsfår (Woodland Sheep), and this name is no longer in use, but this breed used to survive in woodland pastures, and they still could, as they enjoy eating the leaves and bark of branches.

Värmland sheep are quite small compared to production sheep but are one of the larger breeds among the common sheep, both in number and in terms of body size.  Rams weigh 50 kg- 90 kg and stand around 72cm at the withers, and ewes weigh 45 kg- 85 kg and stand around 66cm at the withers.  Ewes are good mothers and usually have two lambs at a time, but triplets do occur.  Young ewes usually have one lamb. Värmland sheep can lamb three times in two years.

Värmland sheep have a good sense of flock, and they often become very friendly and tame. They are good grazing animals and like to eat grass.  The sheep are well suited to both small and large herds.

The Värmland sheep has been preserved in the gene bank of the Swedish Rural Sheep Association since 1997.  They are a conservation breed with 1691 registered breeding ewes (2021).

The colour varies greatly and is found in all colours, white, black, brown, beige and motely/speckled.  The motley/speckled colour did not have Bengt's sheep and is therefore not considered an original colour.  Bengt sometimes had sheep with a small white element.  This is an important aspect of the breeding work to preserve the Värmland sheep as they were.  The wool varies in type from rya to tapestry and fine wool, but also so-called vadamal wool is very common.  It is often very fine-fibred, well-suited for crafts and is very easy to spin and felt.

The wool varies within the breed; they are double-coated, and the length and quantity of the outercoat hairs vary, with fine and medium wools being the most common.

I bought this breed in as 118g 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. Her online shop is still empty as of June 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.  

Unwashed fleece

Unwashed locks

I washed the fleece on 21st May 2022 and the water turned muddy brown straight away.

Clean, dry, washed fleece

Once dry, I was left with 94g of clean fleece ready for combing, and it feels soft but with crispness too. The outer coat in this fleece is not particularly coarse; the fleece is soft and downy with fine hairs, with no thick, horrible hairs in this one. It's not totally soft, but it's not nasty either.  I combed it on 4th July 2023 and this gave me 50g of hand-combed nests ready to spin.

I spun this up on 3rd and 4th June 2026. It was an interesting spin. The fibres were fairly short; some were soft and downy, but the black guard hairs throughout added a coarseness to everything and made the yarn prickly. Definitely not next-to-skin grade as I have spun it. It might be so if all of the guard hairs could be removed. I achieved a yarn that was 48g/130m.

It took me a while to knit the piece for this, due to the heatwaves that we have endured this summer, and I had made a start on it only to have to leave it for a while and then when I picked it back up and started knitting again, reaching the pattern for the lettering, I discovered that I hadn't got the right number of stitches on the needles for my design and so had to undo the entire thing and start from the beginning. Thankfully, it was only about 10 rows. I finally finished knitting this piece on 19th July 2026.