Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2021 Stage 21

The Cycling: Stage 21 is 108.4km long and starts in Chatou and ends in with a sprint on the Champs-Élysées.  All eyes are on Mark Cavendish as this is his last chance this year to beat Eddy Merckx record of stage wins.  He went for it on the final sprint for the finish line but found himself boxed in by other riders and finished in third place.  Wout van Aert won the stage.  

Team Challenge: "This is it; the final day!  Well done to everyone who has come along on this spinning journey with  us!  The time has come to don your yellow, grab your finish-line-fluff and spin your way to victory!

The final challenge of Tour de Fleece 2021 is to spin something yellow or something that contains yellow.  If you would like, you can also post a finish-line picture of you, your wheel and your work this month!".

What I planned to do and what I achieved:  It's very hot today.  I have the fans on and I am still melting.  I have spun some Ryeland today that I combed a little while ago from a purchase of 200g of raw fleece that weighed 150g after it was washed and 98g after it was combed.  It's really nice.  I got  238m, which gives another 714m towards the team total.  My contribution to the team total amounts to 11,196m

My final tour photo of everything that I've spun on the tour contains 18 skeins from 13 different British breeds, leaving me 10 breeds left to spin, 5 of which I'm still waiting to be delivered to me in fleece form, so have lots to do yet.  Unfortunately, the photo is taken in artificial light so you can't really see the difference in colour and texture as clear as you would in natural daylight, but its all very different.

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I will be pushing on with the spinning of the last 10 breeds for my British Breeds project, still waiting for 5 of them to come in from the farmers but I can get on with the knitting part if I'm left waiting.

A final team total was given on 26th July 2021 by the Team Organisers and as a team we have spun 261,939.01m!  This is the equivalent of 163 miles!

Ryeland and Coloured Ryeland Sheep

Ryelands are said to have been named after the fields of ryegrass that they grazed on in Herefordshire back in the 1300's, when they were raised by monks.  The Ryeland is one of the oldest breeds of sheep in Britain and had one of the finest wools of the time.  Queen Elizabeth I was given some stockings made from Ryeland wool in the 16th Century and from then on stockings made from any other wool were not too well received.

Today, the fleece of the Ryeland is not not as fine as it originally was, having being crossed with other breeds to increase meat production, but they do still produce a relatively fine and fluffy fleece which is probably best spun woollen style due the loft and good elasticity of the wool.  It can be spun worsted style too if that is your preference, which will make a lightweight yarn with a smooth finish and will be more durable than a woollen-style yarn.  Ryeland fleece does not felt as easily as most other wools and so is very good for items that need a lot of washing.  You can dye Ryeland fleece of both varieties and the fleece will produce a lovely matte finish.  Just remember that when dyeing the coloured fleece it is best to choose a stronger darker colour for best results.

Regular "white" Ryeland Sheep

British Ryelands are relatively small sheep, compared to some other breeds, producing a fleece of 2-3Kg with a staple length of around 2-5 inches, although generally more 3-4 inches.  British Ryelands also have a gene which can produce offspring with dark coloured fleece.  These are not referred to as "black" due to the fact that the coloured fleece may have many different colours in them including black, various shades of grey and brown.  Other strains of Ryeland, such as Australian Ryeland, do not have the coloured gene.

Coloured Ryeland Sheep, these ones are predominantly brown.

Coloured Ryeland Sheep showing how mottled the colour can be.

Preparing and spinning Coloured Ryeland

I want to try all kinds of different sheep fleece and I saw this small amount of Coloured Ryeland fleece on Ebay.  A bag of 120g of raw fleece from a young teenage farmer based up in Scotland.  Just the right amount to try a fleece.  I found quite a few small black dead beetles in the fleece, which scared me half to death but the at least it wasn't dead spiders, that would really freak me out!  I washed the fleece and left it to dry.

Dirty fleece on the left, clean fleece on the right.

I had a go at carding this fleece as the staple length wasn't really long enough for my wool combs.  I really struggle with carding and I can't make those nice little neat rolags to save my life so the best I could do was just card it and the lift it off flat.

I spun two singles from this fleece kind of woollen style and then plied together to make a yarn 73g/99m that is approximately an aran weight yarn.  I would like to try Coloured Ryeland again in the future when I have more experience and see what I can do with it then.

Click to discover more about Ryeland and Coloured Ryeland Sheep