Bog Green Attic Yarn and Echinopsis

First skein of Bog Green Attic Yarn! I like it!

And it's spring:

This is some sort of Echinopsis. The flower is white and has a lovely scent. It has two flower buds, can you see them?

Boreray. My Fiber Studies 17

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

The Sheep

This sheep is one of the island sheep from the North Atlantic off the Scottish coast. They have an interesting history, which you can read more about in the links below. They really do look a bit wild, with their shaggy fleece and dangerous looking horns. The state of the breed is critical.

              Photo in British Sheep & Wool, p. 155

The Wool

The wool shows a wide variety of fibers: soft undercoat, soft to harsh overcoat, and kemp, with a micron count of 18-35 and even coarser. It's used for tweeds and other fabrics, and can also be used in knitting yarns. The colors range from light gray to brown and black.

My Experience

Preparation: combing and carding, and opening locks with my fingers
Spinning Wheel: Louet Victoria
Ratio: 1:8.5

The samples of fleece I got from Jane had been chosen with care to make a spinner happy: there was a lot of different fiber types. So many interesting fibers to spin! I roughly divided them into heaps: undercoat, over coat, both under and over, and in grey and offwhite. The fibers came from four different fleeces.

I combed some of the fibers, carded some. I pulled out the undercoat from a couple of samples.

I spun the rolags and tops with both woolen and worsted draw and a lot of twist to keep all the fibers in the yarns. I found myself changing my drafting a bit once in a while, but it seemed as if most of the fibers and preparations wanted to be spun worsted. I spun the coarsest fibers from the locks without preparing, only opened the locks with my fingers and spun worsted from the tip end.

In the yarns you can see the soft undercoat, hair (overcoat) and kemp. Some of the hair is quite soft, but there's also quite harsh hair.

Conclusions

What joy! Last spring I thought I'd spin primitive wool only if I have to. After my class with Deborah Robson in August I found I would gladly spin these wools again. I hadn't spun rare breeds before that, but Finnsheep and Finn crossbreeds have a large range of wool types, and that's what I spun in the 80s and 90s until exhaustion. Now I look at them with new eyes. I think I might start looking for funny fleeces among the meat sheep in the neighborhood.

The Boreray with all these wooltypes is so challenging, a wonderful fiber to work with. In the samples above you can see quite soft yarns suitable for spinning and weaving, stronger yarns that could be used in outdoor sweaters, and harsh strong yarns for weaving.

Yes, I want to work with this wool again.

Read More


Internet
Boreray sheep
Rare Breeds Survival Trust
Wikipedia

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

Gulf Coast. My Fiber Studies 16

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

The Sheep

Gulf Coast sheep is one of the oldest breeds in North America. It's ancestors could be the first sheep the Spanish brought with them in the 1500s. It has developed in the Gulf coast area for hundreds of years. After World War II not many were left. That was a dramatic change from the hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast sheep that had been grazing the lands before the war. The breed is now considered critical by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy.

The Wool

Gulf Coast Sheep are mostly white, but other colors occur (brown, black). The wool has a micron count of 26-32. It's suitable for a wide range of products, for knitting, weaving and felting.

My Experience

Preparation: mill carded roving
Spinning wheel: Louet Victoria
Ratio: 1:8.5
WPI in singles on my wpi-tool: 28

The roving from Spirit Trail produced a wonderful knitting yarn. It was easy to spin with a woolen draw. I spun a 2-ply and from the left overs on one bobbin a Navajoplied 3-ply.

           I have labeled the skein "Spinning Loft", but the roving is from Spirit Trail

Conclusions

I would be happy to spin more of this. A sweater comes to my mind first of all. Hubby would love that :)

Read more

Internet
Gulf Coast Sheep Breeders Association
American Livestock Breeds Conservancy

Literature
Deborah Robson & Carol Ekarius, The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook. Storey Publishing, to be released in May 2011

Lincoln Longwool. My Fiber Studies 15

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

The Sheep

           Photo in "British Sheep & Wool", p. 99

The breed originates in the Middle Ages. There is much written about Lincoln sheep, so please look at the links below or read more in books. Lincoln is now a dual purpose sheep for meat and wool, in older days the wool was most important.  It's a big polled sheep with dark ears and a white face. Lincoln is one of the breeds used for developing Polwarth, Columbia, Corriedale, Targhee and Montadale sheep. The breed is on both the British and American lists for rare breeds.

The Wool

The lustrous wool is creamy to white or grey. The staple length is 15-30 cm.

Lincoln wool is used in carpets and upholstery. Handspinners can use the wool in a large range of products.

My Experience

Preparation: hand combing Louet one row mini combs
Spinning wheel: Louet Victoria
Ratio: 1:8.5
WPI in singles on my wpi-tool: about 32

I had a lovely sample of Lincoln from The Spinning Loft. My mini combs are far too small for this sturdy wool, so I combed only two small tops and left the rest of the beautiful wool sample for a time when I have combs suited for it. I first thought I'd spindle the wool, but I changed my mind. Anyway, this is what the top looked like:

I didn't try to mix the colors because I wanted them to show in the yarn. I got a strong, variegated yarn I would gladly use for weaving, maybe a bag or a sturdy cushion. For a carpet I would spin a much thicker yarn, or make a multiply yarn.

Read more
Internet
Lincoln Longwool Sheep
National Lincoln Sheep Breeders Association
American Livestock Breeds Conservancy
Rare Breeds Survival Trust

Literature
M. L. Ryder, Sheep & Man. Duckworth, 2007
British Sheep & Wool. British Wool Marketing Board, 2010.
Clara Parkes, The Knitters Book of Wool. Potter Craft, 2009
Deborah Robson & Carol Ekarius, The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook. Storey Publishing, to be released in May 2011
Nola & Jane Fournier, In Sheep's Clothing. Interweave Press, 1995.

Handspinning Rare Wools

This video about spinning rare wools is a treasure. It's a DVD with two discs, showing the wools, preparation, spinning, and the history of 38 breeds. Deborah Robson was the editor of Spin Off Magazine for thirteen years and one of the persons who were involved in the Save the Sheep Project. I was reading about that project with great interest at the time, and every now and then I return to articles in the magazine to freshen my knowledge about certain breeds and how to spin their wools. In August last year I had the opportunity to take Deb's class on rare wools in Stirling in Scotland. It was a day that left me full of new knowledge, ideas, and above all, a humble admiration of Deb's tremendous knowledge about sheep and wool, and of her passion for fibers, sheep and history.

"Handspinning Rare Wools, how to spin them, why we should care" can be ordered or downloaded from Interweave Press. I think the video should be in every spinner's reference library. 

Deb's and Carol Ekarius' book "The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook: Moore than 200 Fibers, from Animal to Spun Yarn" will be released in May on Storey Publishing.