Blue Texel sheep are derived from the Texel sheep and named after the island of Texel just off the coast of the Netherlands, where Lincoln and Leicester Longwool sheep were crossbred with the native sheep in the mid-1800's with the goal of achieving a high-quality meat breed. Blue-woolled lambs were sometimes born in Texel flocks, but no attention was paid to them until the early 1970's when deliberate breeding for the blue colour began, and some all-blue flocks were established. By 1983 there were 213 blue sheep across 11 flocks. By 2009, numbers had risen to about 6500, and they were classed as "not at risk", but by 2021 numbers had dropped to about 4000, with 2545 registered breeding ewes, and they have been re-categorised as "endangered/at risk".
This breed are medium size and the blue can vary from very pale to dark but no part of the fleece is wholly black or white but usually the head, shoulders and rump are darker with the lighter shade over the back. The rams weigh about 100kg and are about 72cm at the withers and the ewes about 80kg and about 68cm at the withers. Both sexes are polled. They are a breed that is raised primarily for meat and the fleece are a secondary crop.
 |
I bought this breed in as 100g of washed raw fleece back in May 2022 from a lady from whom I bought many of the breed samples for my British Sheep Breed Project. I have purchased a number of samples from her for this Non-British Breed Project too, although she doesn't stock very many breeds that fit this category. It was described as a lovely soft fleece with locks that are springy with a crisp feeling and with a partially organised crimp that is easy to spin and has a lofty quality. This fleece has come from a prize winning flock in Oxfordshire here in the UK. This a really hard to find breed that I haven't seen for available in any of the usual spinning fibre stores here in the UK.
Although it was sold as pre-washed and I wasn't intending to give it another wash but after washing other pre-washed samples and seeing how much lanolin washed out I decided to wash it again as a precaution on 31st May 2022 and I'm glad that I did as the water turned quite milky when I put the fleece in which confirmed to me that it was still full of lanolin. Lanolin is not a bad thing, it's actually good for dry skin, but it's bad when you are trying to comb a fleece as it makes it really hard work and makes your wool combs all sticky and nasty.
I split the fibre into two equal piles, undid all the fibre nests in the first half, and put all the ends together and pre-drafted from all of them at the same time to even out the colours and tones as much as possible. I had to spin it as fine as I could, as it is one of those fibres that bloom after washing to set the twist. I spun over 2nd and 3rd August 2026, achieving 58g/213m of yarn that is not too dissimilar to Jacob wool or any of the "down" breed wools.
I started knitting on 16th August and finished on 24th August, only working on it a little at a time because I was working in the garden again.
No comments:
Post a Comment