Åland sheep and Finnsheep

A few weeks ago I met a sheep farmer who breeds not only for meat, but also for wool. She has Åland sheep and Finnsheep, two of the native breeds of Finland. Today I had a chance to take photos. The farmer was busy elsewhere, so at first I was afraid I'd scare the sheep. But no! They only came closer and closer, and the camera lens I had chosen soon proved to be the wrong one. I had to pic up the phone for close ups!

Here they come! "Who are you?" they said.

The Åland sheep were not as brave as the Finns, they stayed in the background at first:

Two of the Åland sheep seemed to like each other very much. The kept looking for each other in the herd and rubbing their heads when they met, clearly in a fond way:

The white Finns are bigger and stronger than the small Ålands.

The sheep will be sheared at the beginning of November, and then I'll go back for a couple of fleeces. The spinners among my readers will see how yummy the wool of these sheep is. Here's a close up of the double coat of a young Åland sheep. I think this is a lamb from this year because it doesn't have ear tags yet:

And look at it's face!

Oh it's so beautiful...

Speaking of beautiful heads, we saw another beautiful face later today, the little terrier I've shown in an earlier post:

She's a little lovely devil :) Our Kasper got upset and wanted to fight, so he had to stay in the car and seemed quite content with that.

The Åland sheep are archipelago sheep from Åland, the islands in southern Finland where the Gulf of Bothnia meets the Baltic see. The breed was saved a few decades ago, but it's still extremely rare. The sheep lived much at their own in the stony islands, with little interference from humans. They are small and hardy with a double coat in all the natural colors. Both ewes and rams have horns. The rams horns can be quite impressive. This is from the island where the sheep in my photos live, but the landscape in some parts of Åland is much the same:

So now I'll wait for a few weeks, then it'll be time for wool scouring again. I have now doubt it'll rain the next weeks because it's that time of the year, and the sheep will get dirty, but on the other hand, the wool will be longer. In the mean time I will be busy with a few samples of wool from Estonian Native Sheep, and with Kainuu Grey and a few other breeds.

On the way home we had a glimpse of some 40 people fishing from the big bridge between the archipelago and the main land. They seemed to be just as happy as the sheep, but for other reasons. They had coffee and sandwiches on the parking ground, and it seemed some of them even caught a Baltic herring or two :) Those herrings are the best you can get, it's gourmet food, fried in a pan in butter and eaten with rye bread.

Scouring Finnwool

I'm a very happy spinner indeed. Kind spinners keep sending me lovely wool, and now it's autumn, and that means it's shearing time in Scandinavia.

This is what I've been scouring today:

Lovely Finnwool sent to me by a Finnish spinner! It's soft, has lovely crimp, and it's very clean. Still I have to scour it, because there's dirt in it. Scouring Finnwool is delicate work. Don't touch, only look:

It felts. Warm water, detergent, and agitating makes felt out of this wool in a couple of minutes.

Finnsheep

Here is a very good article about Finnsheep: International Fleeces, Focus on Finnsheep

A Day for Green Boucle

Today I have just been having fun. I spun a green boucle. It's Finnwool, dyed locks I bought at a fair last autumn. I combed them, spun a thick and thin singles and plied with blue sewing yarn.

American Finnsheep. My Fiber Studies 12

I take part in the SpinDoctor Rare Breed Wool Challenge on Ravelry. My blog posts are tagged SpinDoctor. The challenge ends June 30th 2011. You find SpinDoctor's podcasts in my Link List to the right.

The Sheep

Finnsheep belong to the North European short tailed group. It's an old breed, with an estimated age of one thousand years. At the beginning of the 20th century wool was an important part of the breeding, but after World War II meat became more important. Because of that the size of the sheep has grown quite a lot. It's been exported to at least 40 countries, the main cause being it's high prolifacy. It's not unusual with 3-4 lambs. Before WW II the wool was highly appreciated, and was exported to many countries. It was sometimes called "Nordic Merino".

The pelt has been a big article in earlier years. You can still see sheep skins used as bed linens for babies in our harsh Finnish winters when families are out walking. When I was a child I loved sleeping in grandma's sheep skins, one under me, one covering me :) I think I fell i love with clean sheep wool then, under school age.

The breed is also known as the Finnish Landrace, or more familiar, the Finn. In Finland it's called Suomenlammas in Finnish and Finsk lantras in Swedish.

In this study I look at the American version of Finnsheep. I will return to the sheep of my own country, the Finnish Finns, later.

The first Finnsheep were imported to America in 1966 by the University of Manitoba in Canada. There is an interesting article about the breed and it's wool I prefer to call "American" rather than "Finnish" here: Grace Hatton: Fiber Basics. Often when animals are imported to another country, they are crossed with other breeds. That happened to Finnsheep in America also.

The American Finnsheep are rare. Not many purebred Finns are born each year.

The Wool and My Experience

The Finns are mostly white, but there also all the natural color variations of brown and black. A grey variation of the Finnsheep is called Kainuun Harmas.

American Finnwool is classified as "longwool" by The Spinning Loft, where I bought my sample. In Finland the sheep are sheared twice a year, so the staple length is not what I would call longwool. The sample I got from The Spinning Loft was long. I forgot to measure it and even to save a lock, so I can't say how long it was, but about 12-14 cm is a qualified guess. On the whole I was so astonished by this "Finnwool" that I lost my nerve :) I was happy about it, yes I was! It was a lovely fiber.

I combed the sample after I scoured it. I nearly damaged it by agitating it while it was still in the water, silly me. I'm well aware of one the characteristics of Finnwool: it felts. It felts if you look at it and say "felt!" The combing left me with lots of waste because of that, but I ended up with beautiful small tops, like small clouds. I spun them fine on a 1 oz drop spindle, plied on slightly heavier spindle. It was under plied, so I put it through my spinning wheel... phew... and knitted a lace sample. The wool really behaved like a longwool, which hasn't stopped astonishing me.

So what to do with the precious combing waste? I was angry with myself for almost spoiling this wonderful fiber, so I put the waste in the dyeing pot, added blue and red dyes and acid. Then I spun it on a supported spindle and plied it with a yellow singles I found in my stash. I got a pretty nice light weight yarn I can use as an example for "don't give up easy" in Spin in Public events.

Yes, this is a balanced yarn even if it doesn't look like it! It's low twist in both singles and the 2-ply

Next time I encounter American Finn I'll try not to loose my nerve.

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Internet
American Finnsheep Breeders' Association