Swaledale Sheep

On with the next breed for my British Breeds project and its the turn of the Swaledale, named after the valley in which the breed originated in the Yorkshire Dales National Park.  The Swaledale belongs to the Blackfaced Mountain category of sheep.

The Swaledale sheep, at the time of writing, is in the "Other UK Native Breeds" category, according to the Rare Breeds Survival Trust.  This means that there are over 3000 sheep of this breed registered with the relevant breed society and a quick search reveals that there are over 1,200 pedigree flocks of Swaledale sheep within the UK alone, so there are good numbers of these sheep around.  According to the British Wool Marketing Board the breed was established in the UK during the 20th century.  They are used to produce cross breed sheep known as Mashams and North Country Mules.  The Masham is produced by breeding a Teeswater ram (or sometimes a Wensleydale ram) to either a Dalesbred or a Swaledale ewe (and sometimes a Rough Fell ewe is used).  Ewe lambs from these crossings are then raised as breeding ewes in commercial flocks due to improved qualities.  North Country Mules are produced by using a Bluefaced Leicester ram with a ewe suited to the locality of the flock, usually one of the Blackfaced Mountain breeds and the ewes produced are then cross-bred again with rams of larger meat breeds such as Texel or Suffolk.

Swaledales are usually found in the more mountainous regions of the UK but particularly up in the Yorkshire Dales, County Durham and the pennine fells of Cumbria.  They are well known in the English Lake District, along with Dalesbred, Rough Fell and Herdwick breeds of sheep.  They are related to both the Scottish Blackface and Rough Fell and are noted for their ability to thrive in exposed locations, although the specific origins of the breed are unknown.

The Swaledale is a medium build sheep with a blackface, white muzzle and white circles around the eyes and the legs are free of wool.  Both sexes grow curled horns, although the males horns grow much larger.  Individual sheep tend to be hefted to a specific part of the mountain or fell and will remain there, often where they were born, without the need for fencing.

They produce a medium size fleece that contains hair and kemp that protects them against wet weather, along with finer wool to keep them warm. It has the largest proportion of finer wool out of the three most similar breeds, Swaledale, Herdwick and Rough Fell.  This is a breed that produces wool that is definitely not for worn next to skin wear.  The fleece is white to off-white but if you leave the kemp and dark fibres in then yarn produced will appear grey, this is what I have for my sample.  Depending on the source of information, the staple length is between 4 and 8 inches long (10-20.5 cm long) and can be anything from 1.6 to 3 kilos in weight. 

This fleece can be spun from teased locks, it can be carded or combed using Viking combs.  During combing the fibres will pull off in sequence of length as always, which means that you will first pull off the longest fibres, then the medium length and the kemp will come off last so you can spin them like that and have and everchanging yarn that may barber-pole during plying or you could take 3 lengths at a time and stagger them so you have each type of fibre in your hands at all times and thereby re-combining them as you spin as long as you keep your grip light else they will separate again.  Carding will keep the fibres mixed.

Yarns spun from Swaledale fleece are definitely suited to household items and upholstery and not for any kind of clothing except maybe a lined jacket.  

I have bought this breed in as pre-prepared fibre in a box containing 50g each of four British Breeds and you can see the dark fibres and the kemp in this photo.  I also had a 25g sample that I got with another pack and the small sample was slightly different in quality so I stretched it out to the same length as the 50g and spun them together at the same time.

Spun to Sport Weight my yarn is 74g/185m

My finished yarn is of medium quality to the touch of the hand and you can feel the prickly hair and kemp but I do like the colour.  My knitted piece for the project only took 20g/50m so I have some left to do whatever with.

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.