Falkland Merino - The Falkland Islands

The Falkland Islands don't have any native sheep and they have a very complex past both politically and with regards to the different sheep that have been kept on the islands and the quality of the wool.  Its a long post that details this complex journey as best as I can.

The Falkland Islands is a group of islands in the South Atlantic Ocean in the southern hemisphere about 300 miles northeast of the southern tip of South America.  They have been claimed and occupied by several nations over their documented history, all using their own national flags during their occupation of the islands.  The UK has over-seen the self-governing of the Falkland Islands since 1833 as one of its overseas territories and provided military support and oversees foreign affairs, although ownership has long been disputed by Argentina and they have regularly protested Britain's occupation of the islands, their argument based on a papal bull issued by the pope of the Roman Catholic church in 1493 and on the need to end a colonial situation.  Britain have always maintained that they have had an open, continuous, effective possession, occupation and administration of the islands since 1833 and it has always applied the principle of self-determination on the Falklanders and that far from ending a colonial situation Argentine rule and control of the lives of the Falklanders against their wishes would, in fact, create one.  

On 2nd April 1982, Argentina's military government invaded and so began the 10 week long Falklands War, which they lost when British troops forcibly reoccupied the islands.  It cost the lives of over 600 Argentinian troops and over 250 British troops.  Argentina have still continued with the claim of the ownership of the Falkland Islands and to help resolve the issue, the people of the Falklands Islands held a referendum in 2013 to determine who they want to govern them.  The result was that just over 99% of the voters wanted the Falkland Islands to remain as a British overseas territory and keep their UK citizenship. A 2016 UN commission found that the Falklands Islands lie in Argentinian waters and the dispute continues despite the fact that the islands are 300 miles away from Argentina in the South Atlantic Ocean.

The islands got their own flag in 1876 which featured an image of HMS Hebe, a ship that brought many early British settlers to the island, and also a bullock to represent the feral cattle that once roamed the islands.  The flag was updated in 1925 to show a different ship, the Desire, captained by John Davis who discovered the islands in 1592, and also a sea lion.  It was updated again in 1948, keeping the Desire and changing the sea lion for a ram, depicting the main industry of the islands.

Over the years the islands have been used in many different ways.  To begin with they were used mostly as resupply and repair ports by passing ships. Some cattle and sheep were being raised on the islands for food.  In 1851 concerted efforts were made to establish sheep farms that specialised in the production of wool. A charter from Queen Victoria was given to tame the wild cattle that had been left by Spanish settlers who no longer lived there, to open a general store, start a postal system and to develop sheep farms.  Samuel Lafone arrived with Cheviot sheep from the Cheviot Hills from the north of England and they were crossed with other breeds over the years.  Settlers to the islands came from Scotland, Wales, England, France, Scandinavia and South America with many of these settlers descendants still living on the islands today.  

By 1898 there were in the region of 807,000 sheep on the islands and wool became the most valuable and largest export.  More than half of the farms were owned by the Falklands Islands Company and the rest were predominantly owned by wealthy people from London who hired people to tend to their flocks of sheep with the majority of the islanders being farm workers and tenants, not land owners or farm owners.  With the lack of ability to progress upwards in life, islanders started leaving and the population fell until an economic report recommended that large holdings owned by absentee landlords to be broken up and sold to the islanders.  This stopped people leaving and gave a better future with more prospects to the individual people of the Falkland Islands.

The 10 week long Falklands War in 1982 was disastrous to the flocks of sheep on the islands.  Many of the sheep and other livestock were killed by the Argentine soldiers for food and they also looted and caused destruction.  They placed approximately 30,000 land mines in 146 minefields to defend against the UK troops and some sheep fell victim to these too.  At the end of the war some of the landmines were cleared immediately but following a series of accidents that resulted in 6 deaths or serious injuries amongst the British and Argentinian demining teams, fences were placed around the remaining 117 minefields to protect the islanders and their sheep.  These fenced off areas became de facto nature reserves for the Magellanic and Gentoo Penguins, who were not heavy enough to trigger the mines.  Native flora also thrived in the minefields.  Something good coming from something bad.

The British Government ratified the Ottawa Treaty in 1998 that required the removal of all landmines within its territory by 1st March 2009 but many of the Falkland islanders opposed the demining operation stating that the landmines were clearly marked and there was no demand for the land.  It was also feared that it would have a detrimental effect on the nature reserves that would no longer be protected from farmers and tourists.  Some supported the removal of the landmines which would allow access to once popular beaches.  

The removal agreement also required that Argentina helped to remove their land mines but the Falklands Government refused to allow any Argentine presence on the islands.  After much deliberation the British began a landmine removal program alone and this started on the islands in 2009.  The deadline was extended to 2019 and then to 2021 due to the high cost and slow work.  The removal program cost £44 million. The final landmines were removed in November 2020.  The islanders celebrated with the detonation of the last land mine and the cutting down of the last fences which finally give them back access to the beaches.  

Also in November 2020, the Argentine government, still not happy, criticised the British landmine removal operation claiming that it was a violation of the 1976 United National General Assembly resolution 31/49 that called upon the two countries to "refrain from taking decisions that would imply introducing unilateral modifications in the situation" and they had also previously raised complaints about the British operation at the Ottawa Convention.  In November 2023, 3 mines were discovered in an area that proved difficult to clear due to shifting sand dunes which meant that many of the landmines were now buried really deep making many undetectable.  Digging the area deeply would destroy the nature reserves.  They were removed and the area checked again for mines and re-deemed safe in April 2024.  I dare say that many more mines may be discovered over the next century or so as they re-surface.

So, after the complex history lesson lets get back to the wool that is available to buy in present times.  The economy has broadened in recent years to include tourism and commercial fishing but sheep are very much an important part of the economy and the culture so much so that the Falklands Radio daily weather forecast includes a report on the wind chill factor for newly sheared sheep.  They sell the wool and the mutton, along with beef.  

There is spinning fibre, and yarn in fact, that is available to buy that is marketed under the name of "Falkland" but there isn't a Falkland breed of sheep.  The sheep on the Falkland Islands consist mostly of Polwarths, Corriedales, Romney's, Texels and Merino's and various crosses of all of these breeds.  The Falkland Island shepherds manage their flocks well and have achieved heavier fleeces with ever-finer and higher quality fibres.  Figures for 2023 show there to be just under 500,000 sheep on the islands.  Large amounts of the wool is gathered into a "wool pool" and sold for the highest price possible and would most likely contain a variety of breeds and crossbreeds.  It is cleaned and processed together and marketed as "Falklands wool", mostly in the European marketplace where it is well regarded for its texture and whiteness.

Falkland Merino Ewe and lamb

Talking of the whiteness, there are no known sheep diseases on the islands so the sheep do not have to go through the process of being chemically dipped.  The islands climate minimises bacteria and other factors that have an affect on the colour of the wool and these two things combined probably explain why the wool from the Falkland Islands tends to be very white.  Due to the cost of importing chemical fertilizers and herbicides to the islands the farmers have never used them and relied on other methods which means that the wool of the Falkland Islands can be certified as Organic.  43% of farms are accredited in the Responsible Wool Scheme and in addition a small number of farms have organic certification with Australian Certified Organic (AOC), which then further increases the value of their wool.

Since most of the wool is pooled and from a variety of different breeds this means that the fibre can range from 18-32 microns but most of the wool is probably 27-30 microns but all of it would be comfortable to wear next to skin.  There can be a variety of crimps in the spinning fibre, lustre and subtle texture differences between the mill run batches and different years so it is always best to buy enough fibre, or yarn, at the same time, from the source and batch number if it is noted, to ensure consistency.

If you are lucky you may be able to find named breed fleeces for sale that have been imported from the Falkland Islands to the UK that have not gone into the "wool pool" because if a farmer produces exceptionally fine fleece and can prove they are organic they can demand a higher price than a "wool pool price" and so often sell these to "wool traders".

I brought this breed in back in June 2015 as a whole fleece via Ebay from a company, that was at that time trading on Ebay as AshfordFibres.co.uk and they were selling from a little village called Atwick, which is in Holderness, East Riding of Yorkshire.  It confused me at the time because of the similarity with Ashford who sell spinning wheels and spinning fibre, who are a completely different company.  Anyway, AshfordFibres.co.uk seem to have disappeared now, no such company. However, having found the receipt for this fleece there appears to be another trading name of www.wooltops.co.uk and they appear to still be trading, or at least there is an online shop with a limited amount of stock in it.  

Sold to me as a Superfine Falklands Islands Merino fleece that comes from a small flock on the Falkland Islands with a count of 18/19 microns and staple length of  3½ to 4½ inches.  Just look at the beautiful crimp in these photos that I took right before I washed it.

On arrival this weighed approx 1493g.  I removed 113g of second cuts and really short locks that really were too short to be processed and then got on with washing the fleece.

Once it was all dry I was left with a clean fleece weight of 1010g and apart from using a small amount of it for a single spinning project this fleece has remained untouched in a clean pillowcase for all of those years, until now.  I was thinking of using this fleece to make the yarn that will join this entire project together because it does need to used up but since combing and spinning some of it for this project I have changed my mind and I will buy in something that is sturdier of holding all the heavy wool pieces together for that job.  I will keep this Falkland Merino to make some beautiful lace shawls with at a later date.  

I have put off working with the fleece for so long because it is exceptionally fine and I feared that my Valkyrie Extra Fine wool combs would not be able to cope with the fineness of it.  I persevered and combed 146g of the fleece that I have left and was able to produce 103g of lovely, buttery soft hand combed top, but it took me over 8 and a half hours over 7th and 8th July to get that much.  

Unfortunately, I forgot to take good photos of the hand combed top but I do have a couple that I took with my phone as I was combing.

This fleece is absolutely beautiful, even after all of these years.  It then took me 3 days, 9th, 10th and 11th July to spin the singles really finely, as this is another breed that will bounce up after spinning and washing.  

I started to ply the singles late evening of 11th July but had to park it for the night and finish the ply on the morning of 12th July.

When I washed the skein after spinning, a lot of grease washed out of it, the water became quite milky.  This is probably due to being overly careful during the initial washing process of the fleece all those years ago.  Handling it very gingerly so as not to turn it to felt. This has spun up to 16wpi and it feels so lightweight and so so so soft.  There is 99g/626m of 2ply yarn.  I have no idea how I have so many metres for the weight of the skein in comparison to what I have achieved for the other breeds so far and yet they are in the same yarn weight bracket of 16wpi.

It took me a few days to complete the knitted piece, starting on 24th and ending on 27th July 2025 and the piece and the sample has only used 12g/76m.

Whilst I was knitting this up I was finally able to secure myself a pair of Valkyrie Super Fine wool combs, which I have been looking for for a number of years but as they are precision made by hand by one man they are very hard to get hold of as as soon as he puts them up for sale they are snapped up.

South Country Cheviot Sheep

There are three distinct Cheviot sheep breeds here in the UK.  The South Country Cheviot, The North Country Cheviot and the Brecknock Hill Cheviot.  All three varieties share distinctive looks: they have wool-free white faces, upright and perky ears, Roman noses, dark nostrils, and their eyes are ringed dark which makes them look like they are wearing eye-liner. All three then have their own distinguishing features and characteristics and they are different in size and whether they have horns or not.  Each have their own blog post so be sure to click on links within the posts to navigate between the three.

The South Country Cheviot Sheep, also known as the Border Cheviot and in the US it is known as the American Classic Cheviot, is the oldest and the original of the three Cheviot breed of sheep to be found in the UK.

These are the dominant sheep in the southern portion of the Cheviot Hills, which run along the border of England and Scotland and were formed by a volcanic flow of lava 400 million years ago. The hills tallest point stands at 2,673 feet above sea level. 

The Cheviot Hills have been home to grazing sheep since at least the 14th century and there is a story that the sheep were to bought to land following the grounding of a Spanish ship and they escaped and ran off and quickly established a large population in the southern hill country.  At this time the Spaniards were developing the forebears of the Merino and so these sheep already possessed high quality fine fleece.

Around 1480 local Monks who kept a large number of these sheep were keen to improve them and tried crossing them with some imported Merino sheep but this was not a success and the offspring were prone to foot rot.  Also around this time the towns in the borders region were becoming reliant on wool to keep the increasing Tweed mills working. James Robson of Belford, Northumberland is credited with the development and improvement of the South Country Cheviot when he obtained three Lincolnshire Longwool rams and crossed them with some ewes and this proved successful in producing a good strong sheep with more more wool.

In 1791, Sir John Sinclair was tasked with improving the national stock and he selected the native long woolled hill sheep found in the Border's Cheviot Hills from all other breeds he had seen and he gave them the name of Cheviot, the first time they had been named as a breed.  He believed they were the perfect mountain sheep in both form and fleece and so he took 500 of these Cheviots more than 300 miles north to his Langwell Estate in Ulbester, Caithness which is almost the most northern part of mainland Scotland.  It was a success and they flourished as they suited the terrain and so many more thousands were transported north over the following years.  They were crossed with Leicester and other rams and the breed developed into the bigger and slightly different North Country Cheviot and that is a different blog post.

The South Country Cheviot can be found in the Cheviot Hills, Southern Scotland, Northern England and South Wales.  At the time of writing they are in the Rare Breeds Survival Trust category 6: Other UK Native Breeds (over 3000) registered breeding ewes.

The South Country Cheviot is a small, hardy sheep that is very alert and active and weighing in at 55-70kg for a ewe and 70-80kg for a ram they are much smaller than the North Country Cheviot.  They have wool-free white faces, upright and perky ears, Roman noses, dark nostrils, and their eyes are ringed dark which makes them look like they are wearing eye-liner. The rams can have horns.  The fleece is white with a distinctive ruff behind the ears with crisp, white lustrous wool.  The fleece weigh 2-3kg with a staple length of 4-5 inches.  The locks have rectangular staples with slightly pointed tips and a three dimensional crimp.  Breed associations specify no hair, kemp or coloured fibres should be in the ideal fleece.

The South Country Cheviot fleece is described as "chalky" and whilst the wool dyes wells it does not have the brilliance of the longwools like the North Country Cheviot does.  If you have a short fleece it can be carded but usually it is long enough to be flicked or combed.  It is good for socks, sweaters and the like.

 

I couldn't find fleece or fibre from this one for sale anywhere as most people just clump all three of the Cheviot breeds under the umbrella of "Cheviot".  I found a Facebook group for the breed and sent them a message on 22nd April 2021 and I got a reply back the next day and I gave them my details and then it all went silent, despite me sending another message on 30th May to ask if the shearing had been done.  I never did hear back from this contact.  Maybe it was a Covid thing.

I finally managed to get hold of a South Country Cheviot fleece in mid-August 2021 from a young farmer who is working and raising his own flock under his fathers supervision in Dumfries, Scotland.  It is a Hogg fleece, which means last years lamb and weighed 1.5kg on arrival.  I was put in contact with this young farmer by someone who had written a blog post about the breed that I came across when searching for this fleece.  I made contact with her and the rest is history, as they say.

After sorting out a few bits of rubbish and washing what remained I was left with 1107g of nice clean fleece ready to be prepared for spinning.

I took 145g of this nice clean bright white fleece and I combed it and I got 84g of lovely hand combed top ready to spin.  I have 962g of washed fleece that can be combed at a later date.

My finished yarn is of really nice soft quality to the touch of the hand and just look at how white it is.  My knitted piece for the project took 24g/181m so I have a small amount left to do whatever with, plus the rest of the fleece of course.

Wensleydale X Texel Fleece

I follow a Facebook page for a local-ish farm, according to Google Maps the shortest route is about 31 miles, and they posted that they had some Wensleydale, Texel and cross-breed fleeces for sale and at a really good price.  Obviously, because of Covid-19, a visit in person to check out the quality of the fleece is not really practical so most transactions were taking place online.  After a little deliberating, mainly me wondering if it would be a case of "you get what you pay for", i.e. pay a low price get low quality, I decided to take a punt as at such a great price I would be stupid not to take the risk. 

My ideal fleece would have been the pure bred Wensleydale but these had all gone by the time I had made my decision to just get one and see and so I chose the Wensleydale X Texel fleece, as my preference is for the longer staple fleece.  So I paid my money and waited for the fleece to arrive and I have to say that I was not disappointed.

It was a little lighter than I anticipated, as with the long staples of the Wensleydale and the sheer size of the Texel I was expecting a fleece in the region of 4 or 5 Kg at least but when it came it only weighed 2.65Kg, maybe it is a lamb fleece and not a full grown adult, but still a great bargain as far as I am concerned.

I didn't leave it long before washing this fleece and I noticed that in places there seemed to be a significant amount of "rise" at the sheared end.  This is the point where last years growth ends and this years growth begins and given the size of the rise I would say that the sheep were quite late in being sheared, probably had problems getting a shearer on site due to this pandemic.

Aside from the rise issues, most of which I pulled off as I separated the locks for washing, the fleece is surprisingly fine and soft.  So my starting weight was 2.65Kg and after skirting and washing I'm left with 1.52Kg, which will reduce further when it goes through my combs but I am hoping for around the 1Kg of yarn from this in the end.

This isn't quite the full fleece, I had already washed a small amount and the blue area didn't wash out and so was thrown away.

Despite the muddyness of the locks the fleece is really fine and soft.

Side by side, dirty locks and washed locks, this process still amazes me.

Trying more plant based dyes

After harvesting the homegrown carrots, I have once again made some dye using the carrot tops but this time I am not waiting to use it at a later date, I am using it straight away.  I am also going to try a couple of dried goods for dyeing that I bought from a supplier, marigolds and logwood.

I mordanted the entirety of the white parts of a Jacob fleece in Bichromate of Potash first.  Its not a safe chemical and certainly not eco-friendly, which is a shame as by using plant material for dyes you would think that the whole process would be more eco-friendly than other dyes, but sadly not.  For plant dyes to take effectively you need to mordant the fibre and it is the various mordants that are not eco-friendly.

The fleece came from a friend of an ex-work colleague, you can read about that here.  This one was fleece No.5.

The first thing I dyed with was the carrot top dye that I had just made.  The tops had been chopped and soaked for 3 days, boiled up and simmered for about an hour.  I strained the greenery from the dye, which went into our compost bin, and put the dye liquid back into the dye pot and added 160g of mordanted fleece into it.  I don't think this is as vibrant as last time I used carrot top dyes but I am using a different fibre as well as maybe different strength of plant material relative to the amount of water.  I don't know, its often guesswork with me.

The next thing to go in the dye pot was some dried logwood which had been soaked in a little container of water for 12 hours.  This then had to be simmered for about an hour to obtain the dye.  Logwood produces dark grey dye but interestingly the water turned red when it was simmering.  I had read that if you add about a tablespoon of powdered chalk to the prepared logwood dye before you add the fibre then this produces blue fibres, rather than dark grey.  I gave this a go and put 247g of mordanted fleece into the dye pot.

I'm happy with the results of this one, I have a wonderful mix of dark blue and blue-grey fibres, this will be interesting once its combed.

Logwood can also be used on non-mordanted fibres and it is supposed to take.  The dye bath was clearly not exhausted so I ran and fetched some mohair fleece that I had had sitting around for some time.  I didn't dye all of the mohair but I did grab and good amount, 184g actually, and dumped it into the dye pot.  It didn't seem to be taking any of the dye at all until I added a good glug of citric acid to the dye pot, where it suddenly turned a mushroom kind of colour.  Not the best but not really nasty, I can use this, but I was hoping for some kind of blue-grey like the Jacob wool produced.

The final batch of dye was made using dried marigold flowers, which I followed the instructions for and soaked them for about an hour before simmering them for an hour.  I put 64g of mordanted fleece into the dye pot and hoped that it turned out the colour I had read about and that I hoped for.  No such luck.  Its quite boring to be honest and certainly does not have any orange colouration to it that my natural dye book said it produces with this mordant, as different mordants can affect the final colour produced and this is why I chose to mordant with Bichromate of Potash.

I've bought a Clun Forest Mule Fleece

I couldn't resist.  I saw the photos of this fleece and the high praise of fellow spinners for this ladies fleece and I thought, yeah, why not?  Its beautiful and weighed 2.2kg and I got straight on to cleaning it the day after it arrived.  Very clean fleece in terms of no vegetable matter or other rubbish, no dust, no dirt, no soil or sand fell out as I pulled it apart and I've never had that happen, I am usually sweeping up little mounds of soil and fine sandy grit type of material when I pull a fleece apart but not with this one.  Its got good crimp and so some locks needed a bit of extra cleaning on the tips but overall most of it is decent length staple and reasonably soft.

A Clun Forest Mule is basically a cross breed produced from a Clun Forest and Bluefaced Leicester mating.  I have never spun Clun Forest before and the Bluefaced Leicester I have only ever spun as part of a blend or another Mule Fleece, way back in 2013.

The Clun Forest sheep is a conservation breed, there aren't great numbers of these around.  According to my fleece bible, that I go to for good information about a breed, the fleece is uniform quality all over, which I can say is true, there were no obvious rough bits.  This fibre can take quite a lot of wear, its quite hardy in that respect and it has plenty of loft and bounce so will be good for things like everyday shawls, mittens, hats, jumpers.  It takes dye really well.

The Bluefaced Leiceter sheep is part of the English Longwool breeds of sheep that produces a fine, silky, lustrous long fibre.  Not usually scratchy but is durable enough to withstand a lot of wear and takes dyes really well.  This is one of the hand spinners favourite breeds as it is so versatile.

So, combine the traits of those two sheep breeds together and we have something that could be pretty wonderful.  This came from Dunja Roberts of All In A Spin, who is based in Cwmdu, Crickhowell, Wales, which according to Google Maps, is pretty much in the middle of nowhere.

The photo on the right shows it rolled out but not opened out, it was certainly long.

Before and after washing.  Although it was a "clean" fleece, it was still dirty in terms of colouration.  Its washed up beautifully.

I've bought some Black Alpaca

I had the opportunity to buy some beautiful black alpaca, a little late in the year, but seeing as I've just got my blending hackle I jumped at the chance as I may need some black to make interesting yarns.

I bought a 1Kg bag from Aston Alpacas and after washing all the dust and dirt out, Alpacas love a roll in the dirt, and removing a few bits of slightly coarse fibres I am left with 823g.  It will be beautiful once it has been combed to get the bits of grass etc out of it.

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.

Working on a Romney fleece

I need to be quicker at processing fleece and spinning it up because I actually bought this fleece back in August 2012 and I am only now working on it 5 1/2 years later.  That's a crazy amount of time to have a fleece and not do anything with it.

Romney, which used to be called Romney Marsh Sheep is a long-wool breed of sheep originating in Kent and is often referred to locally as a "Kent". 

When this arrived all those years ago it was rolled up and took me some time to figure out how to open it out.  It had lots of sheep marker on it in different colours.  I'm not sure if this was spray marker used for marking sheep that are pregnant/how many lambs they're having or whether some of this was from the raddle that is strapped to a Rams chest and marks the Ewe during mating.

Its a Ewe fleece and weighed 3.4kg before skirting and washing.  After washing it weighed 2.175kg.  I'm not sure if its because it's been stored for so long or whether its just me being so much more experienced and picky about the fleece that I am prepared to put the effort in make into yarn but this is far more coarser than I recall.  This is another fleece where I ended up binning most of it and only keeping the best fibres from the fleece so from the 2.175kg that was waiting to be combed, I only actually have 362g of hand-combed top for spinning.

By the end of sorting out all that fleece and only coming away with such a small amount of swag I was quite disappointed and fed up with the whole thing so I spun it up very quickly and quite thick to get it out of my sight as quick as possible.  Three skeins of Aran weight yarn that I forgot to take photos of as this point.

I tried dyeing the yarn with the natural liquid dye kept from the boiled up carrot tops from last year and using the appropriate mordant it should have dyed the yarn green but it didn't work, it smelt rancid and stunk the house out.  I had to open doors and windows to try to vent the house and I also used one of the wax melts that I had for Christmas to make the house smell nice again.  I can't find anything anywhere about how long natural dyes from plant material will store for other than the statement "store until ready to use", but clearly 10 months is too long and I would imagine it needs to be used within about a month of making it.

I had to rinse the yarn really well and over-dye it using my Greener Shades Dye and I chose Ruby Red.

I love the colour these have turned out.  These are all aran weight and this one 128g/137m

This one is 117g/148m

and this one is 106g/105m

Zwartbles Fleece

One of the blackest black fleece sheep breeds is said to be the Zwartbles Sheep which originates from Holland and has been imported into countries around the world.  I bought what was advertised as a "1kg of shearling lamb Zwartbles fleece" back in 2014 and, as always, it got skirted and washed on arrival and once dry it then gets put into an old pillowcase, the top tied and with a label and stored until I have time to process it.  My 1kg of freshly shorn fleece became 690g of washed fleece.

A shearling lamb fleece, or shearling fleece, refers to a lamb born late in the season, maybe May/June time as opposed to most lambs being born January/February, that is not sheared in the year of its birth but sheared the following year as its too young to be sheared in the year of its birth.  The main shearing season in the UK is May-July.

I know that this has been stored for 2 1/2 years but as I worked through this fleece I began to have serious doubts about the validity of this being a shearling lamb fleece.  It is extremely coarse and wiry, more like a fleece that has come from an old sheep and not from a lamb at all.

I combed my way through the fleece, handfuls of locks going straight into the bin due to how coarse and wiry they were, the sun-bleached tips broke off as expected and my 690g of washed fleece became just 119g of hand-combed top for spinning and just 11.9% of the original weight of fleece that I purchased.  Terrible, absolutely terrible and yet all I've heard about this breeds fleece is how nice it is, not as nice as Merino or Polwarth, but good reviews.  I'm seriously disappointed with this one at the moment.  I will try the breed again in the future but make sure I get it from another source.

At the end of everything I have 115g/458m of fingering weight yarn that is slightly crisp, not totally horrible, but its not cuddly soft either but will be a bit more hard wearing and less likely to pill than most other yarns.

Portland Fleece - Part I

I brought a kilo of Portland fleece online from Farnell Farm in Kent back in July 2014.  Portland is one of the many breeds that are classed as a conservation breed where they were close to extinction but efforts have been made to dramatically increase numbers and save the breed.

They are a small breed and the fleece washes up to be a warm shade of white.  There can be red kemp in the britch area of the fleece, and I did encounter some.  Kemp is a very coarse hair like fibre that you really want to remove during the preparation process.  The photo below shows a couple of locks, with a small amount of "seconds" attached, so called because it is the very short fibres produced when the shears go over a sheep a second time, shortening the fleece that is remaining on the sheep, and some will inevitably stick to the fleece as it is removed.  These are easily removed by wool combs during the preparation for spinning.

 The photo above, on the left, shows a clump of washed fleece with lots of red kemp in it and the photo above on the right shows a washed lock and an unwashed lock of fleece.

At the time of spinning the yarn my camera had broken and I didn't have a decent camera on my smart phone and so, unfortunately, there are no photos of the wool being combed, or of the combed nests or even of the spun un-dyed yarns.

I can tell you though that from my unwashed fleece weighed 1086g and after washing and removing a small amount of coarse fibre, including the red kemp, I was left with 675g of clean fleece ready to be prepared.  After combing I was left with approximately 420g of nice, clean, soft fibre to spin.  I spun 2-ply as usual and made 4 skeins of yarn, one in a fingering weight and 3 in double knit weights.  I decided to dye the yarn and will cover this in Part II.

Jacob Fleece and helping a farmer out

An ex-work colleague of mine has gotten in touch with me to see if I could help her farmer friend out.  The farmer friend is looking for someone to take a whole load of Jacob fleece off their hands and do what they want with it as they normally just burn it but would rather it put to good use if possible.  They don't have a large enough number of sheep fleece to be able to sell it to the Wool Marketing Board, which I think is 50+ fleece.  Usually small farms will put their fleece together to reach the required minimum amount to be able to sell it to the Wool Marketing Board and divide the monies up from that when it comes in but they are not in a position to do so.

Its a relatively local farm, about 18-20 miles away, in the pretty village of Elford, just outside of Tamworth, Staffordshire.

I had done some asking around of other spinners that I am in touch with via various online forums etc and I had some interest in them and off I went and collected 16 Jacob fleece, driving home in the hot sunshine with the windows down for some fresh air, phew-wwhhhheeeeee!  They did have a few more fleece but someone else had taken those, thankfully!

Some of the fleece had cotted areas (felted) but with the weather we had over the winter I am not at all surprised by that, its been pretty bad.  The only annoying thing, which was done through trying to be nice/thoughtful but turned out to be a pain in the butt and create a lot of work for me as a spinner, was that they had put straw down during shearing in a bid to keep the fleece clean and free of dirt.  I advised them that spinners would rather deal with dirt, which washes out easily than straw which is a pain to remove as it gets stuck in the fleece.  I sorted all the fleece out, removing as much straw as I could and photographed those that I did not want to keep, obviously I kept the best ones for myself, selecting 4 superb fleece and 1 fleece that was not good for spinning at all which I plan to turn into a rug for the lounge.

11 of the fleece found new homes with spinners up and down and the UK and a couple were posted to spinners in Europe.