Cotswold – A Breed On The Brink

Cotswold Sheep always remind me of Chi.

Originally uploaded by sarah.eyre

Cotswold gets it’s name from the Cotswold area of England near the border of Wales. The name cotswold comes from the shelters or “cotes” for the sheep. There are several versions of the development of the breed. The breed as it stands today was imported into the US early in the 19th century and has been used to crossbreed to produce large framed lambs for market. The breed is also believed to be related to long wooled sheep the Romans brought up to England.

Longwools have been used over the years to produce fabrics for outerwear, upholstry and blankets as well as for floor coverings. As synthetic fibers have replaced wool for these uses, the importance of Cotswold and other longwool breeds has driven these breeds to become endangered. According to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, Cotswold are considered a threatened livestock breed.

The sheep themselves are large, polled breed. Ewes weighing 200 pounds while the rams can be upwards of 300 pounds. The breed has naturally colored individuals within its gene pool with shades that range from black to light grey. The locks have been referred to as poor mans mohair because the fiber has a nice bit of luster.

Don’t be afraid of longwools, give cotswold a try and let it surprise you.

Vicuña, Guanaco and Paco-Vicuña – Turning Gold Into Yarn

I’m going to tackle this one fiber at a time so hang on for the ride.

Vicuña fiber that is coming into the US typically has a staple length less than 1″.

What you are seeing is 2/10 of an ounce of vicuña. This will be spun on a charka, which is particularly good for dealing with really short fibers.

This is the first vicuña yarn I made. Spun on a charka, plied on a light top whorl spindle. Not much yardage, but considering it costs around $300 oz you are not going to make a shawl out of it unless you have very deep pockets.

In contrast guanaco costs a paltry $30 oz.

This is a lighter colored dehaired guanaco, it also is a bit washed out by the flash and no matter how I adjusted it came out lighter than in real life. Its staple is longer, but more like somewhere between 1-2″ long.

Here is some spindle spun guanaco in the darker color. It turned out to be the perfect travel project as I could take a few tufts of guanaco and spin for a long time while at a dog show.

Just to compare, here is a picture of the guanaco (about 1 ounce skein) next to the tiny sample of vicuña.

Now you get a better idea about how much is there of each.

The prep for both the vicuña and guanaco is simply spinning directly from the “cloud” of fiber, You could card either one or blend it with another fiber, but for these yarns I chose not to.

The paco-vicuña was a gift from Toni. Yes the fiber than has been on walkabout. I guess all I need to do to scare something out of hiding is blog about it being missing.

I washed it and then decided to both comb and card samples of it similar to what I have been doing with my wool fleeces.

The samples were carded with cotton carders so I created no additional neps other than what was already there.

Not the smoothest preparation and there is a small number of guard hairs scattered throughout. I didn’t try to remove. If I was spinning for a project I certainly would try to remove them.

Here is the finished skein. Not terribly lumpy and bumpy, but hard to spin much thinner.

The combed fiber produced a lot of “waste”. And at $25 to $30 oz for raw it can add up to a considerable amount of weight. The preparation was much smoother and since it had a staple length of between 2 and 3 inches it was not that hard to comb and pull off a bit of top.

The yarn spun was a bit finer, not a whole lot as I used the same spindle, a Bosworth Featherweight, to spin both samples. If I took more time I could have spun much finer.

I’ve been overwhelmed with visits and comments since Stephanie Pearl-McPhee aka The Yarn Harlot posted about Sheepwreck in her blog. Thanks everyone for stopping by and visiting. And Steph thank YOU for coming to Madison.

Believe it or not, I originally planned to go to the Madison event. I live about 10 miles south of the Illinois/Wisconsin state line. It is quicker for me to drive US 12 to Madison, than to try and thread my way through Chicagoland traffic to get to Oak Lawn. I have traveled that route many times for flyball tournaments. And despite having grown up in Indianapolis, Madison feels more like home to me than the suburbs of Chicago. I think I just miss living in a college town.

Knitting “Camp” (actually it was officially a workshop) was very important to me. It was not sock knitting, but EPS (Elizabeth Percentage System). It was a safe camp for me to attend as it was a lot of stuff I knew already punctuated by things I didn’t. It also met my long time yearning to go to one of Meg’s camps. Will I go back? Perhaps one day, I have not decided yet. It is certainly worth it.

BTW, keep an eye on this link for some future news of the herding crew. Pictures will be updated on a periodic basis. (Yes they are Australian Shepherds not guinea pigs.)

Finnish Landrace-Versatility is the Name of the Game

Hey, I found the other mitten!

Other than the fact I keep snagging them with my keys, they have stood up the test of time. These are knitted from a Finn/Lincoln in a modified Elizabeth Zimmermann pattern.

Now to the fiber.

Here is a lock of the purebred Finnish Landrace. See the well defined crimp. It was listed by the seller as an uncoated fleece, but not as a lambs fleece so I don’t know if the tip is just from being exposed or not.

This is the combed fiber. I used two row Viking style combs to comb this.

And here is the fiber spun up.

This is the carded fiber. I should have picked this more to get rid of more of the vegetable matter (vm). Not that you can see it, but I sure can.

Here is the spun yarn.

In addition, I managed to find some commercially processed Finn. The fiber in this prep has very little crimp compared to the hand processed fiber.

It was very easy to over spin the fiber when spun directly from the roving.

Overall, I preferred the hand processed fiber, but the commercial roving was no slouch. There is not a huge difference in the yarn between the combed and carded finn. Either way you are going to be pleased. I would not recommend this for baby clothes, nor would I recommend this for rugs. If you have sensitive skin you may not want a pair of finn socks, but a color patterned or cabled sweater would benefit from finns properties.

I’m very pleased overall. I’ve shied awy from finn in the past but I don’t think I will in the future.

It’s spring shearing season and I’m trying hard not to go nuts buying fleeces. Its very hard believe me. But I’ve managed to acquire a couple fleeces of one of my favorite breeds plus I’m working on more of the primitive and down breeds so there is plenty of wool to review in the future.

I just need more time in the day!

When I started spinning…

Oh my, Abby, you do know how to hit the nail on the head about the early days of spinning.  Thus was the world that was right before I learned to spin.  By the time 1985 rolled around.  SpinOff had expanded from an annual to quarterly, Knitters magazine had published it’s second issue, and I had learned to knit. 

In that fateful second issue was an article called “The Handspinners Choice” by Priscilla Gibson-Roberts.  Now I had read Foxfire 2 in high school so I was familiar that spinning was done in the rural south in the recent past but I had no idea that others still make their own yarn because they chose to, not for survival or at places like Conner Prairie Farm where they reenact the past.

 Being a poor undergraduate and happily living on campus of a large university I pursued the resources available making numerous phone calls until I got the information about a local spinners guild and paid for a lesson that included hand cards, crappy unwashed wool, and THE SPINDLE.

It weighs somewhere between 3 and 4 oz and I spun that awful wool and then corriedale on that spindle.  The university had Shuttle Spindle & Dyepot in their collection, Spin Span Spun, and Allen Fannin’s book as well as a few others about weaving with short sections about spinning.  My first spinning book I actually owned was the slender Fleece In My Hands.  I really honestly believed I could make my own yarn cheaper than buying it at the yarn shop….um…yeah…right….. 

A couple years later I received my 19″ Reeves Saxony wheel when I graduated with my bachelors.  I put down the spindle and didn’t look back…for a long time.  But of course in 1987 that was expected.  The spindle was to find out if you liked it or not and then you graduated to a wheel.  End of story.

 But it wasn’t.

Fast forward to the mid 90’s, somehow I got a top whorl spindle spindle.  I have a suspicion Susan had something to with it as during that time I had moved back to the Midwest and I was like a kid in a candy store in her shop.  What really meshed things with me and the top whorl spindle was me going back to graduate school.  Yes, I know what does -that- have to do with spinning.  Well, the quickest way for me to drive from my house to graduate school went right by The Fold.  Being in school and  having a career in which I earned $8K a year, I didn’t exactly spend a lot of money there then, but I’ve made up for it since!  At that time she was a dealer for Hatchtown Farm Spindles and having been raised by a carpenter I knew good wood when I saw it.  Soon I was the owner of several finely turned spindles and I was spinning my way through graduate school.  I found I could actually enjoy spinning on the top whorl.  It felt more stable and in control.

On a whim I taught Jer to spin.  Well, I didn’t really teach him, I gave him about 30 seconds of instruction and walked away.  Ahem, not only is he a better spindle spinner than I, but he also has a spindle named after him.

 Now I am coming full circle back to learning to spin again on low whorl spindles.  My Turkish spindle in all of its fine wood sits languishing.  I have a couple bolivian pushka.

This one is in my bag right now.  The whorl is crooked and I need to fix that so it spins better.  Plus I have a low whorl in the file drawer behind me, waiting for me to forget my knitting projects I take to work every day.  THE SPINDLE will be brought out and shown at Abby’s workshop on spindles in Michigan.  And perhaps I’ll even ply with it.  But I think I’ll replace the acrylic leader.

In the rest of my life.  Danny is burning up the agility ring.  Despite my handling he’s managed to earn two more titles in CPE agility and is more than 1/2 way to his level 4 Standard title.  In fact we are in level 5 now for everything but Snooker and Standard.

It’s hard to believe he will be 9 in May. 

 Roo is also having a good time, we are doing some agility, but he is more confident in obedience and rally.  He still needs one more leg for his APDT RL3 title.  Luke is now on the hunt for his ONYX title in flyball.  I’m still hoping he earns it before I have to retire him.  He is still running 5.2-5.4 seconds which is great for a 9 year old sheltie.  Daisy is slowly working on her rally titles, she had a setback late last year, but seems to be recovering from that nicely.  And Adam?  Well, we will see.  He’s been a visitor at Danny’s agility class and I think he will go with me to Danny’s next agility trial.    I have many hopes for Adam but its all on his time when he is ready.

Hopefully I can get everything together and tell you about the finn I’ve been spinning next time.  But until then I have yarn to spin, geocaches to find, and dogs to train.

Finnish Landrace: Adaptable and Prolific

weecroft

Originally uploaded by apv2007

My introduction to Finnish Landrace or Finnsheep was by Ron Parker through his herd of crossbred Finn/Lincolns many many years ago when Fibernet was a BBS. I still have yarn and a single lonely mitten from that fleece.   Alas, that herd was dispersed long ago and Ron now lives in Sweden.

Brought into the US in 1966 mainly for one characteristic, the ewes ability to produce and support multiple lambs, Finnsheep has become a popular breed to cross other breeds with. It is one of the progenitor breeds of the Polypay. Originating in the cold northern reaches of Finland, it can live off of rough forage and under both cold and hot conditions.

Finnsheep are related to Romanov, Shetland, and other Nordic short tailed breeds. It has a light carcass, which is not well liked by those producing market lambs. So the reason you see it being used to crossbreed with other breeds is to improve carcass while also improving lamb production.

When you examine the fleece you find a medium wool that has many characteristics of other luster wools. Most Finnsheep are single coated with the odd double coated individual. It has an organized open lock with a gentle wave. While white is the most common color found, some breeders have flocks producing naturally colored wool in black, fawn, grey, and brown as well as several patterns.

The American Finnsheep Breeders Association has a wonderful site focused on handspinning fleeces.

I still wonder where I lost that other mitten…..

What To Do With Polypay

Polypay is a breed I hadn’t spun before.  So all of this was new to me.

 

Following washing I took a good hard look at the fleece.  For a non coated fleece from the Midwest this was pretty clean.  The structure of the lock is rather disorganized and the hand is what I call “crisp”.  To me crisp means it is very springy and bounces back well.   This I attribute to the strong influence of the Dorset on this breed.  The tips are not as yellow as this photo shows, sigh, the blue background was probably not the best choice to photograph this wool on.  The staple length of this particular fleece was about 3″.

Carding this fiber was a joy, in fact I went a bit overboard and carded more than my sample needed.  If I was going to do more than sample, I would first flick the tips then card it.  Carding is for organizing the fiber not to clean it!  Flicking helps open the locks for further teasing which will help some of the vegetable matter (vm) to fall out.

 

This is how the carded fiber spun up.   Blessedly the photo doesn’t show the trapped vm.  I spun this up on a drop spindle using a modified long draw.  It behaved itself well.

Combing this fiber, on the other hand, did clean out the short bits and some of the debris.  But once again, this is not the same as flicking and teasing.  Though with combing you probably don’t need to the tease the fiber.

But it sure looks pretty sitting there in those little bundles.

 

Spinning it was a different story.  It was more difficult.  With the short staple length you had to be careful while drafting.  While it created a smoother yarn, you lost some of the bounce that this fiber has.

 

The top sample is the combed fiber, and the bottom is the carded fiber.  Both samples were somewhat over-spun, but not extremely.  After handling these I’ve decided to flick the ends then drum card the rest of this fiber.  I imagine this becoming a three ply sock yarn.  Did I hear you gasp?  Yes, sock yarn.  Merino is not a good sock yarn for long term wear.  This stuff should remain springy, resist felting and wear for a good long time.

Washing Merino (or Other Fine Wools)

Well, its about time I introduce you to how I wash greasy wool. Originally I planned to do this all with pictures. But since my kitchen is in a perpetual state of clutter I thought it best not to take pictures.

First of all examine your fleece you want to wash. Take it out of its bag, roll out on a sheet and examine it. This is the opportune time to remove large pieces of vegetable matter (vm), second cuts and any stuff that really not worth washing.

I then take 6-8 oz worth of fiber and place it in small drawstring top lingerie bag and close tightly. I then take a large stockpot that is dedicated to washing wool and fill it up about 2/3’s full with the hottest water I can get from our tap. It comes out about 120-140 degrees. I then place it on my stove with the burner on low. Just low enough to keep the water at 140-150 degrees. If the water at your house doesn’t come out of the tap that hot, allow the water to heat up to at least 140 degrees.

I use Dawn dishwashing liquid to wash my wool. With hard water I find that it does the best job. I have tried Orvus paste in the past, but it is better as a wetting agent and not for actually removing grease at least with my water situation. You will need to experiment how much Dawn to use, once again the hardness and pH of your water is going to affect how well how well it works. About 4 seconds worth of squirting is what I use. I then mix it up and check my water temperature.

Once it is hot enough and the detergent is well mixed in the water I drop my bag of wool in. I try and let the wool sink into the water on its own, but will push the last little bit and start my timer for 10 minutes.

After the time has elapsed, I then dump the entire pot into my top loading washer, set it to spin. While the wool spins out I start filling the pot for the second wash. Most every wool I wash needs two washes, some will take more though. Repeat this process for the second wash and then check the wool. Is it still greasy or dirty? Then a third wash will be needed.

Once the wool is clean then you will want to rinse the batch. I simply fill the stockpot with hot water from the tap, push the wool down into it and then spin in the washer. Once again, rinse twice and check. If there is still some soap residue then rinse again. On the final rinse you will want to set your washer for a full spin only cycle. You are only using the washer to remove water from the wool.

After washing all the wool, I then take it to my basement where I have a screen set up for the wool to dry on. Spread it out and allow it to dry. After it is dry you will want to shake it out over the screen to allow more of the vm to fall out.

That’s it! It takes time and those pots get heavy so if you have a bad back it might not be such a good idea to use a large stockpot, but you will need to cut down on the amount of wool you wash at one time if you use a smaller one. Maybe a better idea is to send it out to someone else to process. Personally, I prefer to wash most of my fleeces myself, even if I later send them out to be made into roving. By doing that I run the risk that the processor will re-wash the fleece if I don’t wash it well enough, but that hasn’t happened very often.

I spared myself holiday knitting and weaving. My niece was the only one to get anything handknitted and that’s been done for over 6 months. It was a baby surprise jacket that I had bought and promptly lost 2 sets of buttons for. I decided that the jacket was not meant to have buttons on it and gave it to her before she outgrew it.

I finally ran out of yarn for the main body of the Falling Leaves scarf. I now have started the edging and have finished the first short side and the corner heading up the long side.

The PI shawl with the Shetland/Shetland blend also got some progress done on. I’m up the 96 row stage! That means I will work about 50 rows and then start the edging. I did move it over to a 47″ circular needle out of self preservation. Elizabeth Zimmerman may have been happy to work it on a 29″ needle, but I certainly am not! At least not yarn as thick as I’m working with.

Happy New Year everyone and may it bring you joy and promise. The dogs and I have a lot of work ahead of us this coming year. Agility, obedience, rally and flyball. We have goals, but nothing is set in stone, we will have to see how training progresses.

As you can see, I have my work cut out for myself.

Polypay-An American Breed

Feeding time

Originally uploaded by baalands

Like all breeds of sheep, the Polypay breed was developed to fill a need. In particular the need for a highly prolific breed that could produce and mother multiple lambs in the western ranges of the United States. The name is combination of poly-referring to many or multiple and pay-the return on the investment. It was developed from a combination of Finnsheep, Rambouillet, Dorset, and Targhee. Each providing a specific benefit in the development of the breed. This combination produces a breed that is capable of producing two lamb crops a year and a single wool crop a year.

The Polypay not only is suited to the west, but is coming popular in the Midwest as well. At Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival back in September they had some polypay lambs on display showing off the off-season lambing capabilities. Plus its very nice to have cute little lambs bouncing around at the festival.

The standard calls for the wool to be uniform, not to have coarseness or britchiness and a count from between 54 to 62 (about 22-29 microns, similar to corridale). Because it is such a new breed, there is large amount of variation between fleeces. Most should have a distinct crimp and be between 3-4″ long, but some fleeces can be quite disorganized and have a crisp feel throwing back to the breeds Dorset roots.

This is definitely a breed to watch. In the future there should be more flocks of this sheep showing up at a farm near you.

Icelandic-Lopi, Thel and Tog

First of all, I know I still need to do the demo on merino preparation.  Please be patient, I’m still chasing down the information for merino.  I think I’m going to need Roo to help me get all the “ducks” in a row, or at least a circle, sigh.

Let’s start easy at first. With washed locks of Icelandic.

 

I have a couple lovely Icelandic fleeces I purchased this past spring.  I have washed them and now I’m looking at the locks as they are after washing.  I separate one out and they look like this:

 I really wish the black photographed better, it has a nice luster.

Just using my fingers, I separated the longer and coarser tog fibers from the shorter and finer thel fibers.

The separation of the two fibers is better, but it is tedious and time consuming.

The next logical progression was to comb the fibers.  I own several sets of combs including some Indigo Hound single row Viking combs.  I lashed on some of the black and went to town.  Here is the tog:

Here is a closeup of the rolled up top:

See the white fibers and how thick they are?  They are about average of the rest of the fibers in the bundle.

Here is what was left on the combs, mostly thel:

See how I had problems pulling it from the combs.  The shorter the fiber, the harder pulling the top.  Here is the closer look:

There are still some strands of tog, but mainly shorter pieces of tog and the thel.  Certainly combing is much much faster, but a different product if you are looking to separate the coarser fibers from the finer fibers.

Here are pictures of spun tog:

When I work with this my mind is screaming RUG!

And here is the spun thel:

Now, the lighter colored fleece is finer, but I still would avoid using for anything next to the skin.  

Okay, now for the more familiar lopi:

 Lopi  is both tog and thel carded together.  No combs involved.  This combination can be drafted into a surprisingly thin and stable roving.   I didn’t do that here, but you can buy it as pencil roving and knit directly with it.

Obviously Lopi is better for sweaters and outerwear.  Think of thick outwear that can be fulled to make it more wind-proof. 

 This is a very short tour of what can be done with Icelandic wool.  Adding fulling to woven or knitted items opens a while other dimension to what can be done with it.

 On a personal note, I have finished spinning the now infamous Shetland/Shetland blend and have cast on for my handspun PI Shawl! 

  

I would have liked to be working on a lace scarf, but honestly I cannot see well enough to knit with lace weight yarn with just the map light on in the van.  So the larger gauge and familiar pattern is a welcome change from the endless rows of lace.

I plan to finish the scarf first.  Let’s see if that happens, though.  The scarf if my “learning” project from Heirloom Knits.  I need to decide on a border and pray I have enough yarn for the entire project.  Its some of Abby Franquemont’s hand dyed lace-weight yarn in the “Autumn Stroll” colorway.  But seriously look at this picture and tell me it wasn’t the ideal knitting for this place.

Ahhhhh, Door County in the off-season is a beautiful place.

Icelandic-From The Land Of Fire And Ice

Sheep Originally uploaded by lydurs

During the 80’s I had a coat made of Icelandic wool. I’ll never forget it. Warm, but the loose knitting allowed the wind to go right through. Not practical for an Indiana winter.

During that same time frame the first flock of Icelandics were imported into Canada. They eventually made their way into the United States and today you find many farms offering fleeces for eager spinners.

The sheep is related to shetland and the other Northern short-tailed breeds. The raw fleece smells very much like like the shetland fleeces I have handled. Unlike the shetland, it always has a double coat.

The coats consists of the coarser tog and the finer thel. Lopi (also called lyppa) is a roving that contains both the tog and thel. In the US what is called lopi may or may not actually be lopi. I know one supplier who’s yarn called “Lopi” is actually a bulky 12 ply yarn. I know Schoolhouse Press carries lopi. They call it Unspun Icelandic.

Traditionally everyday working clothes were made of a spun combination of the two fibers then felted to size (something my coat really needed!). The tog which ranges from 50-53 count was used for sails, rope, sewing thread, belts, rugs and other things that would have heavy wear or abrasion. The thel (65-70 count) was spun into yarns for undergarments, baby items, and socks. Just as a point of comparison Merino has a count anywhere from 60 to over 90.

Tog and Thel can be separated by the use of single row “Viking” combs. Blending would be best by using carders. The fleece can be quite long so it may be difficult to drum card.

Many thanks to Elizabeth Abbott who’s book The Icelandic Fleece: A Fibre for All Reasons provided the bulk of the information in this post.

Iceland is one of the many places I would like to visit. The combination of geology and traditional crafts pull me northward. However I think I’ll pass on some of the island’s more exotic cuisine, like the putrid shark.