Cotswold Sheep

I've decided to start off with some Cotswold, as I have some of this spun up already in sport weight, so that makes sense to me to use that to make my test samples for the knitted pieces for my throw.  I wrote blog posts at the time of spinning and these can be found here and here.  Sport weight is probably a good weight of yarn to use as all the different fleece types should be able to be spun at this weight without any issues as some breeds just can't be spun too finely and others can't be spun too thickly so sport weight is a good mid-weight yarn to aim for.

This is Angelo from the award winning Pickwick Flock owned by Rob Harvey Long of Malmesbury, Wiltshire and it is yarn I produced from his fleece that I have used for my sampler.

This photo I download from the internet and it shows off the fleece nicely.

The Cotswold sheep, at the time of writing, is in the "At Risk" category, according to the Rare Breeds Survival Trust.  This means that there is between 900 and 1500 sheep of this breed registered with the relevant breed society.

Historically they are a descendent of sheep introduced to the Cotswold Hills by the Romans and by the middle ages the area was known as a centre of the English wool trade but as the wool market slowed down their popularity fell and by the end of WWI just a few flocks remained and by the 1950's the numbers had fallen even further.  Numbers have since risen but and the breed is currently at a stable position but is not out of danger yet.  According to the British Wool Marketing Board the breed was established in the UK during the 13th century.

The Cotswold is a fairly large, hardy breed and is one of the English Longwool breeds with a well developed forelock of curly fleece.  They stand tall and their bodies are quite long and their face and legs are white and free from wool.  The produce a heavy, lustrous fleece that is in high demand with hand spinners.  Depending on the source of information, the staple length is between 6 and 15 inches long (15-38 cm long) and can be anything from 4-10 kilos in weight. The majority are white but black and grey can also be found, although these are rare.

You can spin this fleece straight from the locks if you like or you can flick or comb them.  Personally I go with wool combs all the way.  The locks can also be used as they are to create novelty yarns by spinning the ends in and letting the lock fall free and dangly, the same can be done in weaving.  They are also often used to make doll's wigs.  The Cotswold fleece takes dye well and the lustrousness makes the colours really shine.  Its good for heavyweight items that need to endure a lot of wear such as rugs, bags and furnishings but if you spin it fine it is wonderful for lace as it produces very good distinct stitches.  I made lace with some of Angelo's fleece and you can see photos here.

When it came to knitting up my sample for my throw, it took me 3 attempts before I was happy with the chosen alphabet style, undoing each one and reusing the yarn.  The knack is being able to read what you have knitted, if you can't make out what it says then its useless. I used an old cross stitch design programme to make the charts for knitting the words.

This is the yarn that I used.

I am sure you can read what it says

My knitted piece took just 22g/42m of yarn and I haven't washed and blocked the knitted piece yet, I want to wait until I've made a good number of them but I've pinned it out to take a photo as without the pins it just rolls up on itself.  It is a fair size so I know that the finished throw is going to be massive but I'm OK with that.

Pure Cotswold Lamb Shawl - Design S203

This is my second attempt at this shawl, the first being when I discovered that I didn't have enough of the yarn I was making it with, or should I say that the figures for the amount of metres of yarn I would need was massively out in the pattern.  This design was originally a really old Danish pattern for a doily and has been re-purposed/adapted/re-published as a shawl design using yarn rather than fine crochet thread.   Had I read to the end of the pattern before I started I would have seen that there was a note from the designer to say that she had run out of yarn before the end of the design.  My question is "why didn't she have the yarn requirement figures adjusted before publishing the pattern?"

Anyway, the yarn I was originally making this design with was used on another shawl and for this design I chose some Cotswold Lamb that I spun from an award winning flock, not only because its beautiful but because I know I will not run out of yarn this time as I have so many skeins of this and I used three full skeins plus a tiny bit from another one.

I had a total panic towards the end of making this shawl.  With 15 rows left to complete the metal knitting tip fell off one end of the wire of the circular needles.  With more than 800 stitches on the needles at the time you can imagine that I let out a little scream but thankfully it happened just after I had finished knitting a row and was putting my knitting down to take a break so all that fell off was 2 stitches but they were so clearly defined I was able to just pop them back onto the wire until I super glued the end back onto the needle.

The cast off was a special stretchy kind of cast off that took me over 2 1/2 hours to do so that the edging was stretchy enough to make the beautiful shaped edge you see below.

 I have plenty of yarn left so keep a lookout for more Cotswold lamb shawls in the future.

Angelo - the Cotswold lamb - Part II

So, Angelo's fleece was 1950g when it arrived and after having the second cuts removed and being washed I am left with 1413g, which needs to be hand combed.  Look at the lovely pillowcase full of gorgeous locks.  Please see Part I for more info.

Now to the combs.  With this fleece I made sure that I loaded the combs up with the cut end on the comb and the tip hanging down like it was on the sheep.

As you can see the tips are still a bit tight and a bit mucky but the combs should get these loosened and opened up.  The photo on the right I think looks like Santa's beard.

Slowly turning locks into fluff...

We have fluff.  Wow, look at the white fluff.  Beautiful!

A hand-combed nest and a small sample of spinning.  Not quite got it right but it was good to practice so I know how to adjust my spinning to this fleece and what I want to get from it.

Spinning the singles ready for plying and showing fineness with the UK 1 pence coin.

I plied the singles and skeined them up into just over 100g in each skein because they still looked a little dirty to me, something I really noticed  just as I was about to wash the second batch of 3 skeins and so I lay one of the first 3 skeins, which was all nice and clean, in amongst the yarns waiting to be washed.  As you can see from the photo on the left, there was a bit of a difference in colour.  This is down to those tips still being a little stuck together and discoloured as I combed them but its all come out in the wash.

I got 10 skeins of yarn, all around the 100g or thereabouts mark and all in the sport weight range, all absolutely beautiful and soft with high lustre.  The last photo shows them all lined up in number order, Skein 1 on the left, Skein 10 on the right.

These are going to make some fabulous wedding shawls, can't wait to get cracking on these but I have so many other things to do first.

Angelo - the Cotswold ram lamb - Part I

Through one of the fleece/spinning forums that I am part of, a very nice farmer has been welcomed to our "flock" so that he can sell his award winning fleece direct to hand-spinners.  He keeps and shows a beautiful flock of Cotswold Sheep.  These are one of the Longwool breeds and he shows his sheep and then after the fleece have been sheared, he shows those too then at the end of the show season he sells the fleece to hand-spinners.  I put my name down for one and it has arrived.  WOW, its beautiful!!!

This is Angelo, the ram lamb that the fleece has come from and a photo of the fleece that Rob sent to me before I purchased it.  Angelo's grandfather won the title of Champion Ram at the Royal Show.

Rob looks after his sheep extremely well and spends hours picking out all the VM from his fleeces so that they are in pristine condition for showing.  This fact, and the fact that his fleece are out-of-this-world, make his fleece highly desirable and there is currently a waiting list, which at the time of writing is about 2 or 3 years long, meaning that is the length of time you have to wait to get your chance of getting your hands on one of these.

The starting weight of this fleece is 1950g but as you can see, its not white and its full of gorgeous lanolin which is great for the sheep, the fleece and my hands but not so great for my hand combs.  Nice long staple and lots of lustre.  Can't wait to see the wonderful yarn that this will make.

There was a small amount of second cuts and rubbish weighing 96g, a very small amount given the size of the fleece and a pile of locks waiting to be washed looks fantastic.

Washing

I used my usual method of washing a fleece which is separating the locks from the whole fleece and using net laundry bags to soak the locks in hot soapy water, regular dishwashing detergent is fine.  I usually use one that also has anti-bacterial qualities too.  My fleece has 2 hot soapy soaks to remove dirt and grease, followed by 2 plain hot water soaks to remove any residue soap and also to remove any further dirt trapped in the locks.  Important: always run the hot water first, then add the soap and carefully/gently swirl the water.  Do not shake your hands in the water, you do not want a bubble bath.  Carefully lower the bag of fleece into the water and push down slowly and gently into the water.  That is it, leave it alone for about 20 minutes, do not touch it or you will end up with a bag of felted mess.  The hot water and soap will do its job perfectly well.  When it comes to changing the water, you carefully lift one end of the bag over onto the other end (fold in half basically) and then lift the whole thing out and let the water run out before gently squeezing most of the excess water out, DO NOT WRING.  Fill sink with fresh hot water and go again.

Just look at that water, and that is from the second hot soapy water soak.

Clean by comparison, or is it?

The locks on the left have been washed but the tips are still a bit mucky but these can be gently rubbed underneath the water and usually loosen up and shed their dirt.  The locks on the right are in need of washing.

Lay out to dry, whoops, missed a bit of a dirty lock there, which was soon rectified.

Just ignore our mess in the background, my hanging drier is out in the utility room/storage area for some of the gardening bits and pieces and recyclable boxes etc.  Look at how clean it looks close up now.