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.