Blending the Llanwenog

About 10 days ago I wrote a post about combing the rust/brick red Llanwenog fleece and said that I need to figure out what I want to blend with it to make it more interesting.  I have a few purchased braids of fibre of a similar main colour that have been blended with yellows or greens and I wanted something a little different.  The list of blend ingredients is quite large.

Top row: Llanwenog, 4g of Trilobal Nylon in shade "Sun".  
Bottom row: 5g of goodie bag blend, 31g Ceilidh in shade "Beltane"

Top row: 5g of goodie bag blend, 8g of Rose Quartz gradient pack sample.  
Bottom row: 4g Tussah Silk in shade "Saffron", 12g of 23 micron Merino in shade "Denim"

Top row: 2g of silk noil in shade "Colbalt", 4g of 70/30 Merino/Silk blend in shade "Soft Fruit"
Bottom row: 3g of Merino in shade "Red", 3g of silk in a fruity shade.

The result of all this fluff blended together on my blending hackle and dizzed off then braided is...

I'm not 100% happy, it's not quite as I had hoped but let's see how it spins up.

Combing the last of the Llanwenog

It's been well over 2 years, nearly 3 in fact, since I dyed the Llanwenog fleece and I have finally gotten around to combing the rust coloured part.  It has taken me a couple of days to get through the bag full of dyed fleece but I now have 216g of hand combed fibre.  I plan to now figure out what I want to blend with it to jazz it up a bit, as its not a particularly pretty colour.

Llanwenog Sheep

The next breed of sheep is the Llanwenog, a welsh breed of sheep belonging to the Welsh Hill and Mountain family.  Developed in the late 1800's from the now-extinct Llanllwni (the local black-faced sheep of the western coastal counties of Wales and named for the mountain they lived on), Shropshires, Welsh Mountain and Clun Forest breeds.  According to the British Wool Marketing Board the breed was established in the UK during the 19th century.

The Llanwenog sheep, at the time of writing, is in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust Category 5: Minority (1500-3000) registered breeding ewes. They are a prolific breed raised primarily for meat and are usually found in mid-west Wales but there are specialist flocks around the UK and the breed association was formed in 1957. 

The Llanwenog is a medium build sheep with a blackface and black legs and a distinctive tuft of wool on its forehead between its short thin ears.  Neither sexes have horns

They produce a medium size white fleece of around 2 - 2.5kg and the staple length is 2 to 4.5 inches (5 to 11.5cm).  The shorter fibres in the fleece can be carded but this is a fleece that is best combed and spun worsted to show off its lustre, shine and sleek qualities.  It can be spun from opened locks.  This fleece takes dye well.

Yarns spun from Llanwenog fleece are quite soft with good stitch definition and can be used for whatever you want to make.  

I bought this breed in as a full fleece back in July 2018 from a farmer in Wales, long before I decided to create a British Breeds Project or write about every British Breed.  At the time, I washed the fleece and split it into four, dyeing three parts different colours and, luckily for me, I left one part white and this is what I will use for my Breed Project. My skirted fleece arrived weighing 1.7kg and after I had removed any other undesirable bits and second cuts, washed and dried it, it weighed 1.33kg

I had 262g of washed white fleece which, once combed, became 150g of hand combed top

I lost 10g somewhere because my skeins total 140g/418m of sport weight yarn

My finished yarn is fairly soft to the touch of the hand is a nice warm white.  My knitted piece for the project only took 16g/48m so I have plenty left to do whatever with.

The "w" in the middle looks a bit weird but it is there and is perfectly formed

The Blue Llanwenog

Last year I bought a Llanwenog sheep fleece, split it into four amounts, left one undyed and then dyed the other 3 amounts in 3 different colours.  This is the blue part of the fleece that started out at 400g and now that it's been combed I only have 153g left due to some of it felting, and an amount of coarse fibres which I have removed.  That is a lot to lose, more than 50% but I am fussy and would rather not spin rubbish and waste my time spinning rubbish.

It is pretty as it is but I wanted to make it something special and to add things to it that would help to soften it a little.

I went and raided and supplies cupboard and came out with all these that work well with the turquoise blue Llanwenog and they come from various supplies I've brought over the last few months, mostly small amounts with one or two larger amounts thrown in.

I split everything in two and blended each half on my blending hackle to get this fabulously interesting fibre ready to spin.

I'm really happy how this has turned out, very interesting.  I have two skeins of double knit weight yarn, 99g/284m and 96g/262m and the fibre content is about 65% Llanwenog Wool, 12% Merino Wool, 10% Tussah Silks, 4.5% Sari Silk, 3% Bluefaced Leicester Wool, 2% Alpaca, 1.5% Shetland Wool, 1% Linen (Flax), 1% Sea Cell.

Spinning the first of the Llanwenog

A couple of days ago I added some Angelina to the pale green Llanwenog and today I have finished making it to yarn.  Its very pretty and quite soft.  Its a sport weight yarn and 138g/376m.  I have some ideas about making a vegan yarn with some fibres that I have and also thinking about what I am going to do with the fibres that I dyed with the carrot tops.

Combing the pale green Llanwenog fleece

I thought I'd make a start on preparing the dyed Llanwenog fleece for spinning, starting with the pale green because that is my favourite colour.

I've never used this breed of sheep fleece before so didn't really know what to expect and I didn't take any work-in-progress photos.  Normally I just leave the finished fibre in little round nests for spinning but I thought I would have a go at making a really rudimentary fibre braid by lining up the unwound nests side by side, overlapping each other a bit and then plaiting them together into a braid.  Its kind of worked, messy but it will hold for now.

I'd like to add something to it, not sure what, maybe some sparkles, but I can't do that on my combs, I need to wait until I get myself a blending hackle or drum carder, which ever I decide to get.  Its not bad though, fairly soft, definitely bouncy and my 270g is now only 140g but I do only keep the best of the fibres to produce the nicest of yarns possible.

Dyeing the Llanwenog fleece

Further to my post a few days ago about buying and washing the Llanwenog fleece.  After it was washed and dried it weighed 1332g, down from the 1714g dirty fleece weight.  I've decided to split this into 4 parts. 

When I talk about dye depth percentages, this is the weight relationship between dry fleece and dye powder so a 1% dye depth, the standard colour depth, is 1g of dye for every 100g of dry fleece.  To achieve a dark shade you use more dye, such as a 2% dye depth and to get a lighter shade you use less dye.

I was using Greener Shades Dyes, which are my favourite dyes that I have used so far. 

I took 400g of fleece, which was the blue stained part of the fleece plus some of the white fleece, and dyed this blue using Coral Reef Aqua at a dye depth of 0.5% to achieve a lighter shade than normal but still dark enough to cover up the staining. 

The rust colour I made up at a dye depth of 0.5% using three different colours of dye: 50% Flame Red, 25% Amethyst Purple, 25% Sunset Orange.  I used 400g of white fleece on that.

The pale green was achieved using a dye depth of just 0.2%, made up of two colours of dye: 75% River Blue, 25% Sunshine Yellow and this was on 270g of white fleece.

The remaining 262g of white fleece has been left undyed.

I definitely love the blue and the green.  The rust colour was a bit of a surprise as I had to substitute one of the dyes that I should have used, as called for in the "recipe book" for another slightly different colour as I had run out of one of the colours so I wasn't sure what it was going to turn out like.

I bought a Llanwenog sheep's fleece

Llanwenog, rolls off the tongue doesn't it.  Llanwenog, Llanwenog, Llanwenog.  Great name for a Welsh breed of sheep.  I've been interested in trying this breed for some time now but its quite rare and the last couple of years I've either had plenty of fleece already waiting to be made into yarn, not had the money to spend on fleece (that I don't really need) or, as in last year, not being well enough to tackle the job of cleaning a fleece.

This one has come from a farm near Llandeilo in Carmarthenshire and the pre-wash weight is 1.7kg.

This arrived yesterday and I've washed it today but unfortunately the farmers sheep markers have not washed out but I did isolate that section and washed it separately so that I could keep the stained fibres together.  Some of it did wash out a bit so its not as heavily stained but it will need to be dyed properly with my dyes as it will never wash out fully.  I might dye quite a bit of this fleece in different colours before combing it and see what interesting yarns I can make.