Keep the Blues Away

I have been spinning. There's a SAL in Ravelry group Spinning in Sweden now in January, and before that we had a Tour during Tour de Ski. Here's some of the yarns I've spun so far:

A 2+2 cabled yarn, fiber from Easyknits.co.uk:

A slub yarn, fiber from MallaC and an unknown source:

A tweed yarn I will finish in the SAL. Red Finull dyed by Renee Darley at Ullaffären, scraps from my stash, silk waste:

So, busy as usual :) I'm also spinning a silk yarn on my tiniest Turkish spindle, and knitting a sweater, and carding some tops together into something pink.

Black Welsh Mountain. My Fiber Studies 9

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

Black Welsh Mountain is an old sheep breed. Black sheep were bred already in the middle ages in Wales. It's a small sheep that produce both meat and wool. There are Black Welsh Mountain sheep in England, Scotland and of course in Wales, but also in the USA.

            British Sheep & Wool, p. 153-154, and my spinning sample card

The Wool

The wool is black or reddish with a micron count of 32-35, American sources says 26-32. The staple length is 8-10 cm. It's mostly used for cloth, but can be used in knitting also. The lambs have a deep black color.

My Experience

I got combed top from Sarah when she visited Malin and me in February. This is one of the coarsest wools I have spun. It felt surprisingly soft, and the preparation was excellent.

Spinning

Spinning Wheel: Louet Victoria
Ratio: 1:6
WPI in singles: 24

I tried short forward and short backward draws but settled on semiwoolen. I tried to draft thicker than I usually spin, but it's not easy for me. The result was a 2-ply yarn softer than I had assumed it would be. It would be a perfect yarn for outdoor use.

Read more

Internet
Black Welsh Mountain UK
American Black Welsh Mountain Sheep Association

Literature
M.L. Ryder, Sheep & Man. Duckworth, 2007
British Sheep & Wool. British Wool Marketing Board, 2010
Deborah Robson & Carol Ekarius, The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook. Storey Publishing, to be released May 2011
Nola & Jane Fournier, In Sheep's Clothing. Interweave Press, 1995

Clun Forest. My Fiber Studies 6

I take part in the SpinDoctor Wool Breed Challenge on Ravelry. My blog posts are tagged "SpinDoctor". The Challenge ends June 30th 2011.

The Sheep 

This sheep has been bred from several breeds on the border of  Shropshire and Powys in UK. Clun Forest is not on the UK Rare Breeds Survival Trust's list, but is listed as "Recovering" by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. It's a hornless sheep with dark brown face and legs, and with a small forelock. I don't have photos of it, but there are pictures here: Timberwood Farm and Fiber

The Wool 

The wool is white to creamy, with a staple lenght of 5-8 cm. The micron range is 29-32. "The main uses of the Clun fleece are fine hosiery, felts, knitting wool and futons" says The British Wool Marketing Board, and the North American Clun Forest Association says it's a fiber for handspinners. The fleece is dense and fine with a crimp that make the fibers bounce away from each other. Below a hand combed top.

My experience

There was 2 oz of raw Clun Forest in a sample package from The Spinning Loft. The wool looked dense and finely crimped, felt bouncy.

Preparation

I scoured the wool, and when it was dry I tried carding a few locks, but it was difficult so I didn't want to continue. I rolled it off into a puni. When I stretched it I got a dread lock! For a moment I felt a deep temptation to dye the fleece and only make dreads :) But first I tried the dog comb, and that was not good at all. Then I tried my one row Louet mini combs, and got a bouncy good looking top. So I combed the rest of the wool and thought I'd try to remember the dreads if I ever wanted to make more of them. 

                                  Fibers carded into a rolag and stretched - a dread lock!

Spinning


Spinning was easy. The tops were like bubble gum, stretchy and bouncy. I spun two different yarns from the same hand combed tops. I plied both yarns into 3-plies on my midi bossie.


1st sample: I wanted to try a woolen draft for these rolag looking combed tops, so I used my wonderful supported Skimo spindle for a semi-woolen, double drafted technique. I really liked that! The yarn felt soft and quite stretchy.


2nd sample: I then spun a classic worsted yarn on a mini bossie. The fibers ran soft and smooth from the tops. The yarn felt less soft and stretchy than the semi-woolen, just as it should.

                            Semi-woolen 3-ply yarn to the left, worsted 3-ply to the right

Knitting


I knitted a swatch with 22 stitches on needles 3 mm. The woolen yarn has less stitch definition because it's softer. The worsted yarn was fast and nice to knit, a very good yarn if I may say so myself. For a sweater I would choose the worsted yarn. It has greater luster and feels strong.

                                        Semi-woolen yarn under, worsted above

Conclusions


A very nice fiber at least in this sample. One have to remember that I only used a very small sample from one fleece, so fiber from another part of the fleece or another sheep might be totally different. I would certainly like to try more of this wool.


Read more:

Internet
Clun Forest Sheep Breeders Society
American Livestock Breeds Conservancy
North American Clun Forest Association
Literature
British Wool & Sheep. British Wool Marketing Board, 2010
Deborah Robson & Carol Ekarius, The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook. Storey Publishing, to be released May 2011.
Spin Off Magazine, Spring 2009
M. L. Ryder, Sheep & Man. Duckworth, 2007.

Manx Loaghtan. My Fiber Studies 5

I take part in the SpinDoctor Wool Breed Challenge on Ravelry. My blog posts are tagged "SpinDoctor". The Challenge ends June 30th 2011.


The Sheep

This is a weird looking sheep, like something from a fantasy story :) The Manx word "loaghtan" means "mouse brown". The lambs are born black. The sheep has lived on the Isle of Man for more than a thousand years. Both rams and ewes have four to six horns. It's a short tailed Northern European sheep, but the length of the tail varies. The sheep are small and fine boned. The meat is of high quality.

Manx Loaghtan is classified as "at risk" by Rare Breeds Survival Trust (UK).

                           Picture from "British Sheep & Wool" p. 164
The Wool

Some of these primitive sheep shed their fleece in spring, others have to be shorn. The staple length is 6-12 cm. The micron range is fine to medium, around 30, but some sheep have a more hairy fleece. The tips are often bleeched into light brown, almost cream. The wooly type is very good for handspinning a lofty, soft, warm yarn.

My Experience

The small heap of Manx Loaghtan I had was full of vegetable matter, matted almost felted tips and matted cut ends with neps. When I looked at it I remembered why I put it away in the autumn when I was spinning the rest of the wool from my class in Stirling. "I'll do it on a better day" I thought.

One of the very good things I learned in Deborah Robson's class was that you can find good fibers in a heap of an awful looking mess if you know how to do it. So, despite that the day I thought would be a good day to clear up in the mess started with a morning when I kept hurting my head on all sorts of things like lamps, shelves, and an open door, it ended up as a good day.

Long, soft and nice fibers once you get them sorted. Upper row: lock, combed tops, rolags, scoured fiber. Below combing in progress, and the dog comb I first tried 

Preparation

I first tested combing the tips off with a dog comb and then card what was left. That was not a good idea. Carding the long fibers only teared them to pieces and didn't take out the VM or the neps. I carded two awkward mini rolags. You can see them in the middle of the upper row in the photo above.

I then tried my one row Louet mini combs, and that worked well. I got a few mini tops of lovely fiber, and a lot of waste which I threw away.

Spinning

Spinning wheel: Louet Victoria
Ratio: 1:6
WPI on my wpi-tool: 24 (average)

I spun the carded rolags with a semi-woolen draw (or against twist, I'm not sure what to call it). I got a lumpy, soft yarn that would be nice in a hat if there was enough of it.

I spun the combed tops in the same way, and in this case I think the draft could be called "against twist". I used a low ratio for low twist with a medium take up to trap as much air as possible in the yarn. The tops were very easy and nice to spin. I plied with the same loose twist and got a yarn that looked very soft before washing.

After washing the yarn was more open and lofty. The ply is a bit uneven, have to work on that in the future. The carded sample was lumpy and uneven, which was to expect.

                                     Carded sample to the left, combed to the right
Knitting 

Yarn: the combed prep
Needles: 3.5 mm
21 stitches, 24 rows

The softness of the yarn takes away some stitch definition in relief patterns in the 2-ply yarn. For a garment like a sweater I would spin 3-ply and not so lofty.

The color of the sample yarn varies, which is natural as I combed small amounts of fiber on mini combs. In a sweater this would make a lovely slightly variegated effect.

Conclusion

A lovely fiber! 

Read more
Internet
Wikipedia Manx Loaghtan
Manx Loaghtan Breeders' Group. This site is quite informative.
Rare Breeds Survival Trust
Literature
British Sheep & Wool. British Wool Marketing Board, 2010
M. L. Ryder, Sheep & Man. Duckworth, 2007
Deborah Robson & Carol Ekarius, The Fleece & Fiber Source Book. Storey Publishing, to be released in May 2011
Nola & Jane Fournier, In Sheep's Clothing. Interweave, 1995

North Ronaldsay. My Fiber Studies 4

I take part in the SpinDoctor Wool Breed Challenge on Ravelry. My blog posts are tagged "SpinDoctor". The Challenge ends June 30th 2011.

The Sheep

These sheep have lived on North Ronaldsay for very long. They "... are closely related genetically to the prehistoric Palustris" Elizabeth Lovick writes in her informative booklet "A North Ronaldsay Yarn". She continues: "They also have many similarities with the Asian Arkhan sheep in Kazakhstan" and "... to be very similar indeed to the bones of sheep found in the stone age village of Skara Brae on Mainland (about 3 thousand BC) and virtually identical to the remains of iron age sheep found throughout Orkney". The sheep belongs to the North Atlantic short tailed group together with Hebridean, Soay, Shetland, Icelandic and Villsau. It is believed to be the ancestor of Shetland sheep. In 1832 the sheep were closed out from the better lands on the island and forced to live on the shores and live on seaweed for greater part of the year. A sudden change of the diet to normal grazing can kill them (copper poisoning).

The North Ronaldsay is a small and fine boned sheep. The rams are horned, the ewes can be horned, polled or scurred. The meat is delicious.

The Wool

North Ronaldsay is a dual coated sheep. The undercoat is "fine as cashmere" says Liz Lovick, and protects the sheep from cold. The outer coat (guard hair) is long and much coarser and leads water out from the wool helping to keep the sheep dry. The lock is triangular as the undercoat fills up in the cut end making it wider.

Scoured lock from Deborah Robson's class in Stirling 2010. Deb's sample card, my notes

The variety of color includes white, grey, black, brown in different shades. The staple length is 4-at least 17 cm. Some written sources says as short as 8 cm as the longest, but as you can see this is not true. The crimp is open in the outer coat, fine in the under coat. The hand is soft to harsh depending on the amount of outer coat and the age of the sheep.

Earlier the sheep where rooed (wool pulled off) when the sheep shed naturally, nowadays they are sheared.

The wool is used for garments like sweaters, hats, mittens. The fleece can be dehaired for a soft yarn. The outer coat can be used in stronger but more harsh yarns.

My Experience

I spun North Ronaldsay for the first time in August 2010 in Stirling, Scotland, in Deb Robson's class on rare wools. We spun from the locks, or, if we had time we combed, flicked or carded them first.

In the autumn I spun the rest of what I could take with me from that class and documented it. I combed the locks with one row Louet mini combs, threw away the rather matted short undercoat and spindle spun the top I could draft out from the comb. This yarn I will use in a hat.

                          Combed spindle spun North Ronaldsay

While in Scotland I bought white, gray and dark brown sliver from Scottish Fibres. The dark brown could be black, I don't know how black North Ronaldsay can be considering they most probably have tips bleached to brown that obscure the pure black. I took 20 grams each from these slivers for this fiber study. The slivers are carded from whole fleeces, so there is every kind of fibers in them: short soft undercoat, longer coarser outercoat and kemp. The slivers drifted apart very easily and were a bit difficult to spin even, but I wanted even yarns I could use in Fair Isle knit, so I decided to try anyway as part of the SpinDoctor's Wool Breed Challenge.

When you spin fibers from a double coated fleece you have to be aware that you are not getting a smooth merino type of yarn. But you can get a very nice yarn suitable for the weather in a cold, wet coastal area. That's what the sheep have grown their fleece for, and that is what you can use it for yourself.

I also took this as a challenge to spin three similar yarns from different fibers to get suitable yarn for a knitted Fair Isle swatch.

                                   Dark brown, grey and white sliver

Options for all three samples


Spinning wheel: Louet Victoria, standard flyer, ratio 1:8.5
WPI in singles on my wpi-tool: 28 (average).
Drafting: double semi-woolen draft. First I let in a little twist by starting what would be a long draw if I continued drafting, but I stopped when there was enough twist to hold the sliver together. Then I followed up with proper drafting and smoothing of the yarn. I wanted to trap the short fibers in the yarn for a loft, warm yarn, but still keep it fine as I also want to wear the hat or mittens. I don't like thick knitted garments because they are too warm for me.
Knitted swatch: 31 stitches, 24 rows, needles 2.5 mm. Pattern from Alice Starmore's Book of Fair Isle Knitting, p. 57.

As all three samples where spun, plied and washed the same way. I give details only for the first sample.

1st sample: The white sliver. There was much kemp and very short fibers from the undercoat among the longer ones from the outer coat as you can see in the first photo:

             First part of the double woolen draft: I have let a bit of twist enter the drafting zone

Second part of the double draft: I have drafted to the fineness I want and let the definitive twist into the yarn.

There is much twist in my yarn. I had to decide on lower twist for a more lofty yarn or high twist for strength and less pilling. I chose the latter.

I combed a few cm of the sliver to see what happens. Short fibers and some kemp were left on the combs after I had drafted out the top. The yarn was spun with short forward draw and then I let it ply back. The yarn is smoother and looks better, but it is also coarser.

This is what was left on the combs after I combed a few cm of the sliver: short undercoat, some long outercoat and kemp

I took the waste from the combs, added a few drops of water and just rubbed it between my fingers, and it felted. I made a small flower of it. I don't know how good felt you could get from the undercoat treated in such a rough way, first carded in a mill and then combed with hand combs,  but at least you could blend it with something else to get good felt. I didn't try needle felting, but of course you could use the soft undercoat for that technique also. On North Ronaldsay the mill owner Jane Donnelly has a felting press she has used for different kinds of felt.

The plied and washed white sample weighed 15 grams and was 83 meters long.

2nd sample: The gray sliver. There was very little kemp in this sliver, and it felt softer than the white one. But when I spun I could see the outercoat and kemp start rising from the yarn on the bobbin. The fibers were stiff and didn't want to twist into the yarn.

The plied and washed gray sample weighed 15 grams and was 93 meters long.

3rd sample: The brown sliver. This was the easiest to spin of the three slivers. It felt coarser, and I think there was a greater amount of outercoat in it. It was shorter than the orther yarns evn if I measured the same WPI ehile spinning.

The plied and washed brown sample weighed 15 grams and was 72 meters long.

                     Big sample skeins 2-ply from sliver, small skeins 3-ply navajo

This is a fiber and yarn with character. The yarn was a joy to knit.

For a sweater I would spin thicker, or a 3-ply. This thin 2-ply yarn would be very good in mittens or a hat. It could also be used in a sweater, but then I would knit on a machine. Handknitting would take forever! But as you can see in the swatch I really would need to work on the diameter control. Even in this small swatch the white yarn is bulging out to the sides because it is thicker than the others.

Read more
Internet
There is much information on North Ronaldsay on internet. Here is some:
Northern Lace Fiber Adventure 2010
Sheep Isle, North Ronaldsay
Rare Breeds Survival Trust
Wikipedia North Ronaldsay
Use a search engine to find the contact details for the mill on North Ronaldsay: A Yarn from North Ronaldsay Ltd
Literature
Elizabeth Lovick, A North Ronaldsay Yarn. The Sheep, Their Yarn and Their Island, s.a. Northern Lace
Deborah Robson & Carol Ekarius, The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook. Storey Publishing, to be released May 2011
M.L. Ryder, Sheep and Man. Duckworth, 2007
Nola and Jane Fournier, In Sheep's Clothing, Interweave Press, 1995
British Sheep & Wool. British Wool Marketing Board, 2010
Wild Fibers Magazine, 2004