Highland HandmadesA Dyer's Notebook

On to the second fiber from The Spinning Loft’s fiber sampler.  This fiber is very different from the last.  VERY.  Here’s what the experts have to say about Navajo-Churro sheep and fiber:

Pic from Navajo-Churro Sheep Association

• N-C sheep are descendents of Churra sheep brought to Mexico from Spain between 1494 and 1540.
• The sheep were raised by the Navajo people, and in the late 1800s the US Army slaughtered thousands of these sheep in an effort to control the Navajo tribe.
• N-C sheep are hardy, adaptable sheep that deal well with periodic doubts and meager vegetation.  They are also parasite and foot-rot resistant.
• Because of the unusual characteristics of the wool, the N-C breed helped develop the textile traditions of the Southwestern native peoples.
• N-C sheep are double-coated and have a lot of variation within the breed.  They range in color from white to tan, black, brown, gray and even spotted.
• N-C sheep can have up to two sets of horns; a curly pair that hang below their ears and a longer, larger pair that curl less above the head.

Pic from Slow Food USA

Navajo-churro fleece is considered to be suitable for “mid-range garments, outerwear, and rugged outerwear, depending on the grade.”  That means everything from mittens to rugs.  Quite a range!  This is due to the relationship of the two types of fibers in the fleece.  The downy undercoat, the softer of the fibers, makes up about 80% of the fleece weight (which can be up to 8 pounds!) and has a micron count between 10 and 35.  10 microns is finer than merino!  High 20 micron counts begin to become prickly.  The remaining 20% of the fleece is “guard hairs” or outercoat. The micron count of the outercoat begins around 35 microns and goes up.  Once resource did say that up to 5% of any N-C fleece may be very prickly kemp that comes in at 65 microns and up.  This is, clearly, not ideal.

Fiber in the Bag

The fiber that I received from The Spinning Loft was less than ideal, for sure.  Not the quality of the fiber; that seems to be consistent with what I’ve read about the breed.  But the SMELL of the fiber was absolutely repugnant.  It reeked of urine.  Now I understand that I am dealing with raw wool – I have no problems with “sheepy” smells or even poo smells… it comes with the sheep.  but the smell of this fiber nearly knocked me over.  As soon as I got it out of the bag and photographed it, in it went into the hot water/Dawn dishliquid combo. When it was clean and dry, here’s what I had:

60 Grams of Raw Fiber

This fiber is long, hairy, and had very little lanolin in it.  It almost felt dry to the touch.  It feels smooth and hair-like.  There are a number of different fiber length and types in this little bit:

6"

??

The little dark and light bits in the near above photo were weird.  Totally unlike the rest of the feece; these bits had no outercoat, were a different color and had different crimp and feel.  I wonder if they are from another breed that accidentally got in the bag or if they were near an area of the sheep’s body that had a different need (the belly or elb, for instance).  I took the weird bits out and tossed them.  I wanted to deal with the traditional N-C fleece only.  The majority of the locks has a small amount of curly crimp and changed color from medium gray at the base to a bleached tan at the tips.  The tips were narrower than the base.

It smelled much better once it was clean and dry.  Thank heavens!

The fiber mass

In Part 2, I will process the fiber for spinning.  Stay Tuned!

Resources:

• The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook, by Deborah Robson & Carol Ekarius
• The Knitter’s Book of Wool, by Clara Parkes
• In Sheep’s Clothing, by Nola Fournier & Jane Fournier

When the fiber was all combed and wound into nests, it sat in a bag for a few days and cried out to be spun.  I’ve heard that short stapled fibers lead to thick yarn, because otherwise the yarn singles drift apart.  I decided to put my wheel ratio to the highest setting (17:1, I think) and see what happened.

What happened was that this Southdown spun finely and evenly like a dream.  Like an absolute dream.  I was helped by the small amount of lanolin left in the fiber, which enabled the very fine fibers to slide past each other smoothly.  I did put a lot of twist into the singles so that when plied, the fiber wouldn’t drift apart.  After spinning all the singles, I let it rest a day then wound it up into a center pull ball to two-ply it.

Southdown Singles

At every step of spinning, winding and plying, more veggie matter fell out.  I did still have to soak the finished yarn in very hot water to remove the rest of the lanolin and some more of the VM.  What I ended up with was this:

It's so FLUFFAY!

98 yards of an incredibly fluffy, smooshy, squishy goodness.  I love this sproingy yarn!  I did notice that because of the crazy directions of the individual fibers, the yarn plies are not very clearly defined … the overall yarn doesn’t have a lot of definition.  It’s not really *fuzzy* as far as halo, but it can be hard to identify the two separate plies the entire way through.  I haven’t knit it up yet, though, so I’m not sure how that will look when it becomes fabric.

Can you pick out the plies?

So final thoughts: This fiber was so much more lovely to work with than I’d anticipated.  I’d heard it could be troublesome, but it was lovely.  The next Southdown fiber I get will have to have less VM in  it, though, because the fibers grab and keep hold of the VM too well.

Next up: Navajo Churro

Once the Southdown was as clean as it was going to be and was dry, I began to experiment with processing.  I do not own hand cards, and my combs are Viking combs meant for long wools and medium-to coarse wools.  Southdown is neither of these.

Here’s where I learned something interesting: Deborah Robson says on the Rare Wools DVD that when working with very elastic and springy wools, one can use a worsted preparation and still get a woolen yarn.  AHA! I thought to myself.  My use of combs is validated!  I decided to go ahead and use my Viking combs to see how they’d work.

I loaded the combs with the scour-shortened locks and began combing.  Much of the VM that was left in the tips of the locks during scouring came out when I combed.  I had to comb over a table so the bits of dried grasses didn’t get all over my carpet.  Two passes with the combs was enough to get a fluffy mass ready for dizzing.  I couldn’t find my dizz so I used the hole in a ruler instead.  As I pulled the fiber off the combs, I noticed that I still felt some lanolin – scouring hadn’t removed all of it.  I ended up with several nests of combed top:

Southdown Combed Top

I did take two locks and save them out from combing.  Instead, I pulled them into a strand of fiber by hand, opening up the lock that way.  It was much less even than the combing, but it did work.  Those two locks are on the right of the above picture.

When I weighed the amount of usable fiber and waste, I noticed that I’d lost quite a bit.  I looked back over the waste to see if there was anything salvageable, but there really wasn’t.  There were a lot of pills in this fiber – I thought at first they were second cuts, but when I pulled them apart they became individual, full-length fibers that has balled themselves up.  A danger of very elastic fibers, I assume.  I ended up with 12g of waste and 29g of useable fiber from my original 59g amount.  The rest was lanolin and VM.

Southdown waste fiber

The nests are all ready to be spun now; they are just waiting for their turn on the wheel.  That will happen very soon, as I’m excited to see what yarn this will create.  I will scour the finished yarn to remove some more of the lanolin that remained from the first washing.

Southdown is the first sheep fleece I picked from my sampler.  I did a little research and here’s what I found out about the breed:

• Southdown sheep come from Southern England.  They are a Down sheep – “Down” referring not to their wool, but to the breed’s origin of the “Downlands” of England.
• Southdowns, like all Down sheep, have colored faces and white wool.  Babydoll Southdowns (an American version of the breed that is smaller than the English version) do come in colors.
• The Southdown sheep is the originator of all of the Down sheep.
• These sheep are primarily a meat sheep, with the fleece being a strong “second crop.”

The fiber came in a 59 gram sample (about 2 oz) that was raw.  It was quite pungent, and upon examining had not only quite a bit of VM (veggie matter) but also poop in the locks. The color was a dull beige yellow, characteristic of raw fleece.

Southdown fleece (raw)

The locks were blocky – they barely narrowed from base to tip, and had an average staple length of just over two inches. They had a very spongelike texture, which I’d never worked with before.  The individual fibers were curly and crimpy and within the lock lost their definition.  The fleece was very dense and springy.

Southdown lock (raw)

I put the entire sample into a lingerie bag and scoured it with the following method: 2 soaks in 130-degree water for 15 minutes each, then two rinses in 130 degree water for ten minutes each.  I shook the bag out on my sweater dryer, turned it on, and let the locks dry overnight.

The next day I examined the locks.  They were much whiter than they had been raw; they were now white at the base and a pale cream at the tips.  The tips still had a lot of veggie matter in them, I am assuming because the fibers were so dense together.  The locks had shortened by half an inch!  My research showed this to be because of the wool’s elasticity.  The poopy bits were still quite poopy, so they got another round of scouring.

Southdown lock (clean)

Southdown fleece (clean)

Part 2 is next – processing and spinning.

Resources:

1. Handspinning Rare Wools: How to Spin Them, Why We Should Care, by Deborah Robson.  2011: Interweave Press.
2. The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, Deborah Robson and Carol Ekarius.  2011: Storey Publishing.
3. Fiber Sampler Kit from The Spinning Loft.

Fiber Sampler Pack

You may remember that this summer I won a fantastic giveaway from Knitty – The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, a lovely box of fiber samples, and the “Spinning Rare Wools” DVD.  I thought it was time I began working my way through the book, fiber, and discs.  I will be cataloging my adventures as I go, and this will be a long-term project. I hope to learn some things while I do this, and hopefully by sharing, you will to.

Each “Week” will be broken up into three posts.  The first will introduce the breed and give some background as well as go over the scouring process.  I hope to take pictures before and after so you can see how different the wool looks once it has been cleaned.  The second post will discuss the processing – coming, carding, teasing, etc. (again with pics) and the third post will discuss the spinning and finishing.  I don’t plan on knitting these up right away, as I need to find just the right pattern.  I’m thinking a sampler, but I’m not sure which one.  I’d love some tips!

The first fleece I’ll be working with is Southdown.  I’m excited!