I was chatting with someone at that event and she was saying how much it had expanded her love of knitting to be able to spin her own yarn too. I agree – it really is a good feeling to be able to start with a fleece and end up with a sweater! I suppose if you were a farmer, you could even start by trimming Jemima's wool in one season and be warm and cozy with a lovely wool sweater by the end of the next!
However, not everyone wants to spin their own wool. It does, after all, take quite a time to prepare enough yardage for something sizeable and you may have to set to with dyepots and so on as well if you want a particular colour for your project.
In the photo you can see the yarns that caught my attention. The sheep breeds here include:
- Black Welsh Mountain, Blue‐Faced Leicester, Bowmont, Corriedale, Falklands, Finn, Gotland, Icelandic, Jacob, Manx Loaghtan, Masham, Merino, Polwarth, Rambouillet, Romney & Wensleydale.
Whew! What a range of fibres.
I also love Bowmont yarn and was very impressed with it when I last used it. It is one of the less well-known breeds, but is lovely and soft. Some while ago I wove a blanket from another of the breeds on this list, too, Polwarth, and that was one of the softest and warmest blankets I have ever made.
The wool come in beautiful natural colours as you can see in the Rare Earth Rug pictured above, but it also takes dyes beautifully, too.
And of course that isn't even an exhaustive list of sheep breeds available. Try typing the name of another breed and 'Handspun' into the Etsy search box and see what comes up!
Until next time – Happy Knitting!
Moira
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handspun yarn, hand-spun yarn, spinning, wool, sheep breeds,