Dorset Horn Sheep

The Dorset Horn is one of Britain's oldest breeds although its origins are a mystery.  There are two lines of thinking.  The first is that it was developed by crossbreeding Spanish Merinos with our native horned Welsh sheep whilst others believe it came from centuries of selection within the native sheep of southern England.  Either way, they are spread across a large area of England and Wales and have also been exported around the world.  A polled version has been developed by two different methods in Australia and the US and I have blogged about this separately here.

Dorset Horn ram

Dorset Horn ewes

The Dorset Horn has been documented from the seventeenth century and is highly prolific and can breed all year round, being the only British breed that does not have a seasonal estrus cycle, but a recurring estrus cycle.  They regularly produce twins and triplets are not uncommon either.  It can be bred earlier in the year than other breeds to produce lambs in time for the Christmas meat market or it can be bred more intensively to produce lambs three times over a two year period.  Either way gives financial advantages to the farmer.

In the 1980's there were more than 100,000 registered breeding ewes in the UK. At the time of writing the Dorset Horn in is the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 5: Minority (1500-3000) registered breeding ewes.  That is a massive drop in numbers and most likely down to downturn in intensive farming practices to one that is more restorative and maybe also down to a preference for other breeds that have been introduced. They are usually found in the south west of England but there are specialist flocks throughout the UK. 

The Dorset Horn is a medium sized sheep with a white face and characteristic pink nostrils.  They are horned in both sexes with the ewe having smaller horns that just grow out and slightly curved whilst the rams have exceptional horns that grow out and curled. 

They produce a medium size fleece that is very thick and weighs 2-4kg with a staple length of 2.5-6inch (6.5-12.5cm).  The fleece is very white with an organised, regular and fine crimp pattern in both fibre and lock and it feels firm with good body.  Micron counts are 26 to 33 so finer fleece can be used for next-to-skin items with coarser fleeces more suited to household textiles.  

The fleece can be combed or carded, depending on the length of the fibres but can also be spun from the lock if you prefer.  The longer length fleece with more open crimp pattern are easier to spin than those that are shorter with more Down-like qualities, which may require more experience to control.  You can spin either woollen style or worsted style, it really is quite a versatile fleece.  It will take dye very clearly.

I have found reference to the fact that there are some coloured Dorsets that have black fleece but it doesn't state whether these are polled or horned and are most likely from being cross bred at some point and so are probably not true Dorsets.  

I have bought this breed in as pre-prepared fibre in a box containing 50g each of four British Breeds and I had also got another smaller 25g sample from a similar pack purchase from elsewhere.

Because to two samples are very slightly different shades what I did was to split the larger sample into two across the length to make two shorter lengths and the smaller sample I split along the length to make two thinner long lengths and paired one of each with each other twice.  The lengths weren't quite the same so I had to stretch the smaller amount out a little bit to match the other length and then pre-draft the two together before spinning to even out the colour and any difference in texture/softness.

My finished yarn is nice and is similar in feel to the Polled Dorset although there is a slight difference in colour, this one is a slightly more pinky-beige tone of white.  Holding them in my hands side by side and in good natural daylight you can see a very slight tonal difference and I have already written a post about the differences between different "white" fleece.  I have 73g/151m of sport weight yarn.  My knitted piece for the project took 26g/54m so I have some left to do whatever with.

The Custom Order is Finished

So I've finished my first custom order for a bride and she is very happy with it.  I can now send this off to the USA and hope that it does actually match her wedding colours when its in the flesh as it were.

My first custom order for a bride

I am so excited by this but it is also really nerve wracking.  I've been asked if I can recreate one of the shawls in my shop, pictured below, but in a golden yellow colour for her wedding in October. 

I do have some yarn in the right thickness and the exact colour that she wants but I don't have enough so I looked to buy more online only to discover that they don't make this colour anymore and I can't find any of that shade available to buy online nor can I find an alternative yarn to use either that is the same colour, the same thickness and around the right price to fit within her budget.  Drat!  OK, let's have a go at dying some of my own hand spun white that would be perfect for the job and fits the budget.

Voila!  Think I've hit the mark pretty good looking at the colour swatch she sent me, and that is with me mixing the Greener Shades dyes to achieve just the right shade, keeping in mind that the chemicals in the water and the wool itself can alter the final shade.  The customer is happy and has placed the order.  I now have to make this quickly as it has to go all the way to the USA for mid-September as she needs it for the final fitting etc.

Parcel of Fibre from World of Wool

I have treated myself to a range of commercial ready-to-spin fibres from World of Wool.

I've bought a couple with the intention of spinning these as they are, a sample pack of British Breeds because I've heard a lot about some of those included in this pack but not sure if they're right for me and my needs and I don't want to fork out on buying a whole or part fleece only to discover its not for me, and the rest I've bought with the intention of using as ingredients with other fibres to create my own blends, although this means that I will have to look at buying dyes specifically for plant based fibres because I only have dyes for animal protein fibres.

The first one is 100g of 50% Polwarth, 25% Alpaca, 25% Silk and the last one is 100g of Zwartbles combed top as I wanted to try Zwartbles again following the poor quality fleece I had the unfortunate opportunity of processing previously.  The samples of British Breeds contain 25g each of Dorset Horn, Whitefaced Woodland, Moorit Shetland, Brown Bluefaced Leicester, Light Grey Herdwick, Light Grey Swaledale, Black Welsh and Black Jacob.

Dorset Horn I have only tried previously as a cross breed fleece I had.  Shetland I have had a few times but never in the Moorit colour.  Bluefaced Leicester I have spun once before, back in my early days of spinning and Black Jacob, well, I've spun lots of Jacob fleece, I've probably spun more Jacob than anything else.  The other breeds, Whitefaced Woodland, Herdwck, Swaledale and Black Welsh I have never spun before so it will be interesting to see how they handle.

The Merino/Suri Alpaca blend I might spin that and then dye it afterwards, not sure yet exactly what I will do with that.  The other fibres are all plant fibres and can be used blended with each other or I can blend them with any of the fleece as I process them.  These will become part of an "ingredients box" along with the various colours of Angelina that I have.

Ultramarine Wool Shawl - Design S122

Following on the tail of the black and magenta shawl that I just made I am straight into the next one of the same design but using an ultramarine blue yarn that I spun back in 2014 from a Hampshire Down x Dorset Horn cross breed.

I started knitting on 7th February and finished on 10th February 2017, taking a little longer this time as I had hospital appointments to attend.

I got to play yarn chicken with this one but luckily there was enough after all with just a few grams of yarn left over.  I wasn't panicking at all, honest!

Hampshire Down X Dorset Horn Part I

Every now and then you come across a fleece that is a cross-breed, in this case Hampshire Down crossed with a Dorset Horn.  The Hampshire Down is quite a dominant breed of sheep in terms of numbers, around the world.  The Dorset Horn, however, is a Conservation Breed.

This one I got for the princely sum of 99p plus postage, which was significantly higher due to weight and bulk.  Yeah, go on, laugh and ask "What's wrong with it?".  I thought that when my bid wasn't challenged only to be surprised when it arrived at how relatively nice it felt for my bargain price, although worried about that yellowish line half-way up the staple.  This was from Ebay and came from Chandlers Ford, Eastleigh, Hampshire and was sheared in June 2012.

It arrived at 2kg and after a quick sort and washing weighed 1.35kg.  I discovered that this fleece had 3 distinct qualities to it and separated the fleece based on these qualities.

Type I

Short curly locks, very much like Shetland, but with a lot of short black kemp like fibres in it.

These are pretty much combing out but those that don't fall out can probably be picked out later.  This part of the fleece weighed 265g and after combing and spinning I made a Double-Knit 2ply yarn of 114g/390m.  This was a yield of 43%.

It turned out that I couldn't pick all the black hairs out and so I wasn't happy with this and decided to dye it.  For some strange reason I picked the Lime Green shade ColourCraft All in One Dye.  I was initially horrified at the colour as I lifted the yarn out of the dye pot but then as the excess water ran out it lightened to quite a nice pastel shade of Lime, which made me quite happy.  That happiness didn't last though.  As I added the skein to some plain warm rinse water, most of the dye went for a swim in the water and I was left with a very sickly yellowish colour.  It couldn't be left in that state but I wasn't sure what colour to over-dye it with.  Whilst I deliberated that, I dyed the next lot of fleece Ultramarine Blue and then decided that I would add this skein to the dye that was left over from that dye pot.  Hey presto, a beautiful colour I think you would agree.