Conservation Breeds

One of the things that drew me to spinning was the connection to our common past. Knitting feels "modern" to me, since yarn is available in lots of places. Spinning though, especially on the drop spindle, feels more ancient, more basic.

Because of this, I have been attracted to breed-specific wool for my spinning. It feels more authentic if I know that it is border leicester wool that I am spinning, and not generic "wool". Plus, breed specific yarns are hard to come by, and it is one of the advantages of hand spinning that I can pick for breed characteristics.

I am particularly attracted to the conservation breeds. Mechanization made sheep with non-white wool obsolete. It made sheep with variable wool obsolete. It made dual-coated sheep obsolete. Mechanization required standardized sheep.

But as a handspinner, I love wool that is different colors. Dual-coated sheep are interesting. There is pleasure in exploring the unique characteristics of a breed and making yarn that works.

A few years ago, I bought my first unwashed wool (by accident). I saw that the festival had wool from a "navajo churro" sheep, and it was an interesting color and texture. At the time, I didn't know anything about the wool, but was interested in exploring. I bought some "jacob" roving at the same time.

Dark jacob wool roving

Lighter jacob wool roving

1 lb unwashed navajo churro wool

After this, I went out and bought several excellent books on different types of wool, to figure out what the heck I was doing.

I discovered several interesting things about navajo churro wool.

1. It is generally considered ideal for weaving.
2. It is dual coated, so it is a pain to deal with.
3. The breed almost disappeared, but some enterprising people revived the breed starting in the 1980s.
4. The wool I had gotten had very short locks, so was not going to be very drapey.
5. It is generally considered an extremely odd wool to work with. I could tell that my locks had almost no crimp (waviness) and kind of looked like human hair.

The triangle shape indicates a dual coat

I decided to spend the time to separate out the locks into the outer and inner coat, although apparently most people don't bother when working with this type of wool. I took off the outer coat by holding the wool at the base in one hand and pulling off the tips with the other. The bleached tips helped. I then combed the wool. It still looked remarkably like human hair.

A bit of combed wool

It felt kind of rough. I had been planning to make socks out of it, since the outer coat is thicker and more durable. I was starting to get worried that it would be too rough for socks. Still, I spun it up on my drop spindle.

One single on the spindle

By the time I was plying it, I knew that it was very rough. I still hoped that a hot bath would loosen it up and make it softer.

After finishing

Nope! Still super rough. I decided to stop fighting against the inevitable and just make a non-clothing item.

Trivets

The trivets I ended up making were perfect for the wool. The original pattern was closed in the middle, but I made an extra wedge, because I liked how it looked this way. I am hoping to get three of them out of the yarn, but I might run out.

So, in conclusion, the lesson for the day is...
Conservation breeds are great, but pay attention to what they are saying they are for, and don't try to make next-to-the-skin garments from anything that wasn't bred for it.

Later: what do I do with the under coat?