Highlander - New Zealand

The Highlander breed was developed, or designed, by a genetics company in New Zealand in the 1990's.  It is a composite breed of Romney, Texel and Finnish Landrace, but didn't really "take off" in New Zealand, so they tried it here in the UK and it is now an established breed in its own right, which means farmers are breeding Highlander sheep to Highlander sheep and getting purebred Highlander lambs.  Initially, I found plenty of information online about this breed but it was all about technical farm breeding and management, about birth rates, survival, birth weights etc etc and some of these posts go back about 9 or 10 years so its been in the UK for quite a while, but not a thing about the fleece and fibre aspect of this breed such as staple lengths, micron counts and such like.  All I could find was that it is a medium-sized sheep that grows white wool.

Fast forward 5 years, since I purchased the small amount of washed fleece, and there is now a lot more information out there about the wool. 

The breed produces a medium-grade, high-bulk wool that hand-spinners find surprisingly soft, squishy and fun to work with. As it is a mix of NZ Romney, Finnish Landrace and Texel, the fleece balances the long staple durability of the Romney with the fine, crimpy loft of the Finn. 

Micron counts typically are 27 to 32 microns and the staple length is generally 3-5". It has a blocky lock structure with a disorganised, springy crimp, giving the fibre incredible loft, elasticity and a desirable squish factor. It has a natural bounce and a medium length. 

Carding embraces the disorganised crimp and makes a lofty yarn. The yarn will be springy and lofty, no matter how you spin it, so spin finer than you would normally to achieve your desired yarn thickness. The fibres are relatively "grabby" and do not require excessive twist to hold together, although worsted spinning does require more twist than woollen spinning; ensure that it feels firm but doesn't kink. Due to the bounce factor from the Finnish Landrace, the yarn will bloom once washed. Finished yarns are durable, resistant to pilling and ideal for hard-wearing outerwear, sweaters, blankets, socks and housewares. It is naturally a bright, creamy white that absorbs acid dyes beautifully.

I bought this breed in as 100g of washed fleece in July 2021 and I combed it on 28th May 2022, getting 63g of top from it.  It was sold to me as "A new sheep breed developed in New Zealand with flocks here in Britain.  A sheep developed for commercial flocks; these are much overlooked from a fibre perspective.  This is from a local Cotswold flock.  It's a lovely soft fleece, short-stapled 2-3 inches, snowy white with woolly fibres."

I spun this up over the 4th to 6th of June 2026 and it was really nice to spin up. I spun it as fine as I possibly could to allow for the bounce and the loft, so that I didn't end up with fat yarn that I wouldn't be able to use in the planned project. I achieved a fingering-weight yarn, 63g/317m, and it is really nice.

I had to wait to knit this up for my project, due to the constant high temperatures and heatwaves, but I was able to knit it quite quickly over two days and finishing on 23rd July 2026.

Värmlandsfår - Sweden

Värmlandsfår, also known as Värmland sheep and the Värmland Forest Sheep originate in Sweden.  They began from Bengt Sonesson's large herd in Osebol near Stöllet by the Klarälven river in northern Värmland.  He had taken over the sheep from his parents and he had long been interested in sheep "of the old stock" so he did not buy any rams of modern breeds. Instead, he expanded his small flock in the 1970s with a few animals that he found on various farms around the Klarälvsdalen valley, in Munkebol, Benteby and Branäs, all of which were of the "old stock".

When Bengt was growing up, the sheep of the entire village were kept together in the forest.  The sheep mixed with sheep from other villages, which ensured that there was always new blood in the flocks.  As a rule, no adult rams were kept, but the ram lambs were allowed to graze with the ewes before they were slaughtered in the autumn.  The lambs were then born early in the winter, often around Christmas.  The sheep were usually white, but sometimes there could be black lambs.  Some were grey or "yset" as they were called, and there could be brown sheep in the area.  Bengt remembers in his youth that his parents had a horned ewe.  The rams are horned or polled.  Polled rams were most common, but horned rams also occurred among the original sheep

During the years 1992-1996, two typical rams from Hälsingland and a small flock from Dalarna were also taken into the flock.  Lars Englund and Nils Dahlbeck had come across these during their travels when they were looking for "coloured rye sheep" and when the "horned sheep" project began.  Among other things, one of these rams ended up with Roger Strömborg, a good friend of Bengt Sonesson, who had sheep from  Bengt's herd for a long time.  Another small group of sheep from Anette Back Olsson in Lekvattnet, Värmland was taken into care.

Compared with a modern meat breed, Värmland would be considered small, but it is one of the largest-bodied breeds. It was once known as Skogsfår (Woodland Sheep), and this name is no longer in use, but this breed used to survive in woodland pastures, and they still could, as they enjoy eating the leaves and bark of branches.

Värmland sheep are quite small compared to production sheep but are one of the larger breeds among the common sheep, both in number and in terms of body size.  Rams weigh 50 kg- 90 kg and stand around 72cm at the withers, and ewes weigh 45 kg- 85 kg and stand around 66cm at the withers.  Ewes are good mothers and usually have two lambs at a time, but triplets do occur.  Young ewes usually have one lamb. Värmland sheep can lamb three times in two years.

Värmland sheep have a good sense of flock, and they often become very friendly and tame. They are good grazing animals and like to eat grass.  The sheep are well suited to both small and large herds.

The Värmland sheep has been preserved in the gene bank of the Swedish Rural Sheep Association since 1997.  They are a conservation breed with 1691 registered breeding ewes (2021).

The colour varies greatly and is found in all colours, white, black, brown, beige and motely/speckled.  The motley/speckled colour did not have Bengt's sheep and is therefore not considered an original colour.  Bengt sometimes had sheep with a small white element.  This is an important aspect of the breeding work to preserve the Värmland sheep as they were.  The wool varies in type from rya to tapestry and fine wool, but also so-called vadamal wool is very common.  It is often very fine-fibred, well-suited for crafts and is very easy to spin and felt.

The wool varies within the breed; they are double-coated, and the length and quantity of the outercoat hairs vary, with fine and medium wools being the most common.

I bought this breed in as 118g of unwashed raw fleece that was part of a sample pack that featured 8 different Swedish breeds that I purchased back in early May 2022 from a lady called Anita Grahn based in Uppsala, Sweden.  I was going to add a link for Anita and her shop, but when I looked, her last social media post was in October of 2024, stating that she was in hospital, and she has not posted anything since. Her online shop is still empty as of June 2026. I do hope she is OK.  However, I can provide a link to Swedish Fibre, a small business run by Sandy Zetterlund who has a passion for knitting, wool, spinning and now a passion for bringing these beautiful fleece from these rare conservation sheep kept by small farmers into the limelight and put them in front of similarly passionate hand spinners like myself who care about ensuring the future and continuation of these rare and unique breeds.  The demand for and sale of the fleece from these rare breeds really do help the survival of the breed.  

Unwashed fleece

Unwashed locks

I washed the fleece on 21st May 2022 and the water turned muddy brown straight away.

Clean, dry, washed fleece

Once dry, I was left with 94g of clean fleece ready for combing, and it feels soft but with crispness too. The outer coat in this fleece is not particularly coarse; the fleece is soft and downy with fine hairs, with no thick, horrible hairs in this one. It's not totally soft, but it's not nasty either.  I combed it on 4th July 2023 and this gave me 50g of hand-combed nests ready to spin.

I spun this up on 3rd and 4th June 2026. It was an interesting spin. The fibres were fairly short; some were soft and downy, but the black guard hairs throughout added a coarseness to everything and made the yarn prickly. Definitely not next-to-skin grade as I have spun it. It might be so if all of the guard hairs could be removed. I achieved a yarn that was 48g/130m.

It took me a while to knit the piece for this, due to the heatwaves that we have endured this summer, and I had made a start on it only to have to leave it for a while and then when I picked it back up and started knitting again, reaching the pattern for the lettering, I discovered that I hadn't got the right number of stitches on the needles for my design and so had to undo the entire thing and start from the beginning. Thankfully, it was only about 10 rows. I finally finished knitting this piece on 19th July 2026.

Gestrikefår - Sweden

Gestrikefår are one strain of several Swedish breeds referred to as "forest sheep", each of which is geographically and genetically unique and very rare.  This breed of sheep originates from the village of Mörtebo in Gästrikland (Gestrike) province in east central Sweden and were once very common.  They were "rediscovered" in 1994 after seemingly been kept in small numbers in closed herds on a handful of farms. They are an endangered conservation breed with just 216 breeding ewes registered as of 2021.  Gestrike have been in the gene bank of the Swedish Farm Sheep Association since 2000.  

They are known for being unusually tame and affectionate.  They are quite small with rams weighing around 60-70kg and standing 69cm at the withers and ewes weighing around 45kg and standing 65cm at the withers. They have short tails, which often go bald as the sheep ages.  The ewes usually have twin lambs but can also have single lambs, triplets, or quads. Both rams and ewes can have horns, but they are usually polled. When horns are present, the Rams will have large horns, whilst the ewes will have small horns.  They come in a whole range of colours: white, grey, brown, black and all colours in between, spotted and parti-coloured. Some lambs are born white and some black or brownish and the fleece can lighten in colour with age. They have double-coated fleece, which varies from very fine wool to long wool type.  The undercoat is often dense.  The wool has tapestry wool or rya-type wool.  I've not been able to find any information about the fibre diameters or microns, but as this is a conservation breed and not in huge numbers, and the fact that the fleece is double-coated and can vary, then I am not surprised that the information is not available.

I bought this breed in as 113g of unwashed raw fleece that was part of a sample pack that featured 8 different Swedish breeds that I purchased back in early May 2022 from a lady called Anita Grahn based in Uppsala, Sweden.  I was going to add a link for Anita and her shop but when I looked her last social media post was in October of 2024 stating that she was in hospital and she has not posted anything since and her online shop is empty as of June 2026. I do hope she is OK.  However, I can provide a link to Swedish Fibre, a small business run by Sandy Zetterlund who has a passion for knitting, wool, spinning and now a passion for bringing these beautiful fleece from these rare conservation sheep kept by small farmers into the limelight and put them in front of similarly passionate hand spinners like myself who care about ensuring the future and continuation of these rare and unique breeds.  The demand for and sale of fleece from these rare breeds really do help the survival of the breed.  

I washed this just a few days after it arrived and the water turned really brown.  All of the beige-brown fibres became white and after it had been washed and dried I was left with 103g, a drop of just 10g.

I combed the fleece about a month later on 19th June 2022 and it gave me 77g of lovely interesting top ready to spin.

I split the fibre into equal amounts to spin a 2ply yarn and pre-drafted it, trying to ensure that the black guard hairs were evenly distributed throughout. It was quite nice to spin, spinning it over a couple of days and finishing on 2nd June 2026. The wool itself was a mix of white and pale grey, which made for an interesting yarn.

The yarn is sturdy, crisp, a little prickly, definitely not next-to-skin. I measure it to be about a sport weight and 73g/229m.

I finished the knitted piece on 10th June 2026.

I think the lettering is fairly easy to read and I love the pooling of colour within the knitting.

Walliser Schwarznasenschaf (Valais Blacknose) - Switzerland

The Walliser Schwarznasenschaf, more commonly known as Valais Blacknose, or Swiss Valais Blacknose, is a breed of mountain sheep that originates from the Valais region of Switzerland and the Bernese Oberland.  It is a dual-purpose sheep, being raised for both meat and wool and is well adapted to grazing on the stony pastures of its area of origin.  They are good at grazing steep, rocky slopes.  

The sheep are documented as far back as the 15th century but the German name of Walliser Schwarznasenschaf was not used until 1884. There has been some cross-breeding in the 19th century with the Bergamasca sheep from northern Italy and the Cotswold sheep from England.  In the 20th century there was some cross-breeding with another English breed, the Southdown.  The breed standard dates from 1962.

They are unique to the Upper Valais and are well adapted to the harsh mountain conditions, being hardy, prolific and frugal.

The breed was exclusively raised in Switzerland until it was imported to the British Isles in 2013 and 2014 by several interested breeders.  There are now flocks of them in Austria, Germany, Holland and the U.S.A.  The total population reported in Switzerland for 2023 was 10,285 -19,732, with 9,380 ewes registered in the herd book, they are not at risk or in conservation breeding programmes.  

Both sexes are horned with helical or spiral-shaped horns.  Ewes may have black spots on tail but rams may not.  Rams weigh 80kg-130kg and stand 75cm-83cm at the withers and ewes weigh 70kg-90kg and stand 72cm-78cm at the withers.  They are unmistakeable sheep with black on their nose, eyes, ears, knees, hocks and feet with light woolly coats.  The wool is coarse with fibre diameter averages of around 27-38 microns and staple lengths of 4 inches (10cm) or more.  The fleece usually weigh around 4kg.

I brought this breed in as 200g of mill washed fleece back in May 2021 and it weighed 256g on arrival.  If I recall, I bought this through Ebay and not one of my usual suppliers.  I do buy fleece through Ebay from time to time but not very often as I prefer to buy from more trusted sources.

I hadn't made any notes as to what I did, whether I washed it again before I worked with it and I can't remember, it was more than 4 years ago and I've worked a lot of fleece since then!  I hadn't even made a note of when I combed it but I have found that out by the date on the photo file.  It seems I combed the fleece in the few days leading up to 3rd June and I got 151g of hand combed from it, to go with the shoulder injury I also suffered from combing this fleece.  I do remember that the locks were really long and I had to keep my combs wide apart from each other and this gave me a badly aching shoulder for months after I had combed it.

I split the fibre into two and pre-drafted before spinning the singles. It was an interesting and enjoyable spin. The fibre quality was variable throughout. Where the fibres were softer, they were shorter and finer; where the fibres were coarser, they were longer and thicker. It's not a true double-coated fleece, but it is classed as a semi-double-coated fleece.

It is not next-to-skin soft, definitely has some prickle to it but not as bad as some of the other breeds. I got a fingering weight yarn that was 138g/463m.

I spun the yarn over two days, 28th and 29th December 2025 but I didn't get around to knitting with it until May 2026. I took me a while, as it so big and I finished the knitted piece on 30th May, using 40g/134m of the yarn. I hope the wording is readable, it was difficult to photograph given the length of the name.

Ryafår - Sweden

Ryafår are an endangered conservation landrace sheep breed from Sweden that has old Norwegian Spelsau (Gammelnorsk Sau) sheep in their heritage.  At the beginning of the 20th century, when industrialism took hold, the Ryafår found it difficult to compete with other wool-producing breeds of sheep and numbers dwindled but thankfully the curly shiny wool is needed to make weatherproof coats for the shepherds so that breed was not allowed to die out completely.

Beautiful 18th century lustrous yarns and textiles from the old Ryafår were studied and the quality found seemed to be missing from modern land breeds. The driving force behind the rediscovery of the Ryafår was Axel Nilsson, director of the Röhssaka Museum. He concluded that this must have been an old breed of sheep in the Nordic countries that left this material. In 1915, he came into contact with Emma Zorn in Mora who discovered that the hill people in Mora, Orsa and Gagnef had a trim on their leather jackets that was made of a beautiful sheepskin that it came from the breed Axel was looking for.

The journey around Dalarna began and they found remnants of the Ryafår breed in Skattungbyn and on Sollerön. 15 ewes were selected and purchased.  They were placed with the Gothenburg family Mannheimer, where Maria Mannheimer saved the breed from extinction through succesful breeding work.  The conservation work was then followed up by the Wåhlstedts in the 1920s.  Soon the Swedish Sheep Breeding Association also took care of the breed and established a national studbook. 

The ewes are known for their good mothering qualities and ability to find food in difficult terrain.  They are medium-sized and hardy and have good meat texture and plenty of wool.  The tail, head and legs are wool free but covered in short, shiny hair.  Rams weigh 70kg-100kg and stand 75cm at the withers and ewes weigh 60kg-80kg and stand 70cm at the withers.  Both sexes are polled.

They are a double coated breed and the wool is long and can be 6 inches (15cm) long on a three month old lamb and up to 12 inches (30cm) long on an adult.  The two coats make up around 50% each on the fleece. Most are white, with some grey, black and brown individuals.  The colours should be solid without any white markings or coloured spots. The wool grows fast and has long straight guard hairs along with some shorter underwool.  Whatever you make will be durable.  Can be spun or felted.

The wool of the Ryafår has unique properties that are appreciated by many, especially by hand spinner and other artisans of handicraft.  The wool is of high quality, fairly straight, strong and durable and yet soft.  There is high lustre and good pile formation.  The coats can be separated and spun to make weather proof items from the outercoat and warm snuggly items from the undercoat.  The back of a shorn fleece can be felted on the cuts and made into a rug.

In 1978, the breed association Föreningen Ryafåret was formed.  The breeding work includes a special sampling of the Rya sheep and wool samples are taken from all animals that are to be used in breeding work to ensure that the properties of the wool are maintained and improved.

In 2017, there were 54 herds of sheep consisting of 72 rams, 732 ewes and 1551 lambs registered in Elitlam.  In 2021 there were 491 registered breeding ewes, which means that the numbers are decreasing.  

I bought this breed in as 94g of unwashed raw fleece that was part of a sample pack that featured 8 different Swedish breeds that I purchased back in early May 2022 from a lady called Anita Grahn based in Uppsala, Sweden.  I was going to add a link for Anita and her shop but when I looked her last social media post was in October of 2024 stating that she was in hospital and she has not posted anything since and her online shop is still empty as of January 2026. I do hope she is OK.  However, I can provide a link to Swedish Fibre, a small business run by Sandy Zetterlund who has a passion for knitting, wool, spinning and now a passion for bringing these beautiful fleece from these rare conservation sheep kept by small farmers into the limelight and put them in front of similarly passionate hand spinners like myself who care about ensuring the future and continuation of these rare and unique breeds.  The demand for and sale of the fleece from these rare breeds really do help the survival of the breed. 

I washed this on 23rd May 2022 and the water turned a very weird milk mid-grey kind of colour, not brown like with other fleece that are dirty and muddy, this was a definite weird grey colour.  Once it was dry it weighed 89g.  I combed it almost immediately on 30th May 2022 and I got 64g of hand combed top from it that still has a good amount of the guard hairs left in it because I felt that if I took any more guard hairs out then I wouldn't have enough left for spinning.  The undercoat is much softer and a darker colour to the coarser and lighter coloured outercoat.

I split the fibre into two equal amounts, spun singles and made a 2-ply yarn.  It was difficult to spin and keep both fibre types together as the two fibre types were behaving like opposing magnets and trying to keep away from each other. It was a constant battle and the resulting yarn is stiff, hairy, prickly and difficult to work with. It is fingering weight and I got 61g/162m of it.

I finished the knitted piece on 13th January 2026 but the lettering is incredibly difficult to see and read.

Charollais - France

Charollais sheep were developed in the Burgundy region of east-central France in the 19th century (1800's) when shepherds crossed imported British Leicester Longwools with their native landrace sheep.  The breed was not officially recognized by the French government until 1974 and then began promoting the fast-growing, muscular breed.  The first export of this breed from France to Britain took place in 1976 and then it was exported to Ireland in 1990, exported to Canada from Britain in 1994 and from there into the USA.   

This is primarily a meat sheep and little care or thought is given to the fleece, which is a shame because they grow fine to medium fleece that are dense but quite short.  They are a medium-large sheep with a pinkish-brown wool free head usually covered in pale coloured hair and both sexes are polled.  The rams weigh about 135kg and ewes about 90kg. Ewes are docile and good tempered.

Average fleece weights are 2-2.5kg and the staple length is usually 1.5-2.5 inches (3.8-6.5cm) with micron counts of 23-30.5 microns.  The locks are rectangular, almost square, due to the shortness.

 

I bought this breed in as 100g of commercially produced top way back in December 2020, when I first started shopping for fibres and fleece for my British Breeds Project and knowing that I would probably do one for Non-British Breeds afterwards.  Also I have not seen any pure breed Charollais fleece for sale at any time since, although I've not been looking specifically for that having purchased this top and I certainly don't want to buy a whole fleece due to the financial cost, storage space issues and the amount of work it takes to prepare and spin a whole fleece by hand especially when the breed has a noted shortness of the staple that I would find difficult to prepare using my wool combs.

The information from the retailer of this is top states that fibre from this breed is dense and springy, its natural brightness makes it a fantastic dye base.  Micron count is 30-33 and the staple length is 80mm (3 inch).  So, the micron count of this seems to be a bit higher than information I can find on this breed elsewhere, so this particular one is not quite as soft as it could potentially otherwise be and the staple length is a little longer than the stated normal range, but that's not unheard off.  Whilst there is information online about this sheep breed most of it is the same repeated information (and I've also just repeated much of it too) and its all about how good it is for meat production, its usefulness as a terminal sire to increase lamb size and profitability and there doesn't seem to be anyone blogging about or promoting the wool of this breed, no one singing its praises or showing off how they prepared the fleece or how they dyed it or anything.  Is no one really enthusiastic about the Charollais in terms of its wool?

I split the commercial top into two lengths and pre-drafted it before spinning a two ply yarn, beginning on 23rd December and finishing on 25th December 2025. I did have to remove some thick hairs and kemp like fibres from this one and the finished yarn is quite crisp and I wouldn't use it next-to-skin. I got a fingering weight yarn that is 96g/399m.

The knitted piece only used 12g of the yarn and I finished knitting it on 10th January 2026.

Finnish Landrace - Finland

Finnish Landrace, also known as Finn sheep or just Finn for short, is an ancient breed from Finland kept for milk, meat, wool and vegetation management as they can feed on rough pasture.  Their milk is often used in cheesemaking. They are known to be one of the most prolific sheep in the world having three, four or five lambs at a time but they can have as many a nine.  The lambs are born small but grow fast and they mature early, being able to be mated themselves at six months old, although they are usually older than this when they first mate.  They are often used in cross breeding programmes to improve lambing rates. 

They are a medium-side breed with rams weighing around 68-91kg and ewes weighing 54 - 82kg.  They are usually polled and the face and legs are free of wool.  They are predominantly white but can come in a range of colours similar to those of the Shetland breed.  The second most common colour is black or black piebald.  Grey, brown and fawn shades can be quite rare.  It seems that availability of colour can depend greatly on where in the world the Finn sheep are being raised.  For instance, it seems that in Australia, white is the only colour available and the wool is longer and softer because they have been bred to have these traits through selective breeding.  This breed can have markings such as a white tail tip, white stockings, white crown, panda-like eye spots.

Finns' fleeces and their wool, often described as silky, is more sleek than fluffy.  It has a nice amount of crimp that gives yarns spun from it a pleasant resilience, although it can't be described as springy.  Most Finn fibre is white with a warm cast to it, but coloured fibre can be found if you search hard enough.  Almost all Finns are single-coated, although their heritage means a double-coated fleece may occasionally appear.  

Finn sheep fleece weighs 1.8-3.6kg with a yield of 50-70%, often on the high end.  The staple lengths are 7.5cm-15cm (3-6 inches), and the count is 24-31 microns.  The fleece is open, and the locks can be separated easily.  The locks are slightly pointed and occasionally have sun-damaged tips.  Shorter locks can be carded, but Finn has the perfect staple lengths for combing and combing makes the most of the lustre.  You can fluff out the locks and spin straight from them, or with one of the longer fleeces, you might want to spin from the fold.  Finn is a lovely, easy-to-spin wool.

Finn is a versatile wool, being sturdy enough to wear well, and some of it is fine enough to be worn next to the skin. It's best to do a tickle test on your neck before you decide what to make with your yarn.  It's a good choice for sweaters, blankets and other snuggly garments.  The fibre's body and lustre make it a great choice for textured knit and purl patterns or woven laces, as well as for crisply defined colour patterns.  

 

I had a choice of two fibre lots that I could use for this project, both commercially prepared top that I already had in my stash.  I had to choose between 50g of white from a breed exploration box I bought in 2020 or 100g of brown that was part of the 2021 Advent Calendar.  I thought about it and I wasn't sure if 50g would make enough yarn to knit the name sample, it might but it would potentially be very tight, and I really don't want to be playing yarn chicken or running out just before I complete it.  Looking at the colours of the other breeds that are in this project, whilst there is a nice amount of different colours and textures, overall white is dominant making the decision to use the brown really easy.

The first thing I had to do was to split it into two and then pre-draft prior to spinning. There was a number of thick white hairs and kemp and I removed this as I worked, both in the pre-drafting and the spinning. It is a pleasant and easy fibre to spin and has spun up to nice and next-to-skin soft fingering weight yarn and I got 96g/306m from this spinning, which I done 21st to 23rd December 2025.

I knit the project piece in the new year, once the Christmas decorations had been packed away, starting on the day that my youngest returned to University and I was knitting whilst the carpet fitters were putting the new carpet on the stairs and landing, which means the renovation of that area is finally finished in full now.  I finished knitting on 7th January 2026.

The stitch definition is pretty good, the words can definitely be read on this one.