Winter is here with a vengence! This morning it was 15 below zero with the wind chill. Yikes! This would have been the perfect weekend to stay in under blankets and watching movies. Naturally, I had things planned both days. Go figure. Saturday I was at the Spinning Loft for a class and today Ginny came to visit and we did lunch and saw "National Treasure." (A fun movie.)
At the Spinning Loft, I started my third sheep breeds class, this time studying double coated breeds. This first class we studied the Icelandic and Herdwick breeds. Double coated breeds have a fleece that has both coarse outer, or guard, hair and a downy undercoat. These are more primitive sheep than the modern, single-coated breeds. We used wool combs to separate the coarse long hair from the finer undercoat. With Icelandic sheep, the coarse, long wool is called the tog and the soft, undercoat is called the thel. The coarse tog can be used for rugs or other items that need hard-wearing fibers. The thel is soft enough for clothing. Herdwick wool is coarse and is used primarily for carpets.
I read somewhere (I wish I could remember where) that, while we might think of the primitive breeds as less useful because only part of the sheep might be good for spinning for clothing, these sheep needed to be everything for the people who raised them. So, the neck and shoulder wool would be fine enough for sewing thread, the back for outer wear, the belly for next-to-skin clothing and the rump and britches would be good for rope or rugs. In addition, the sheep itself provided meat. Since most peoples only had access to one kind of sheep, that sheep needed to provide fiber for many needs as well as food. This was an eye-opener for me and knocked out my Cormo-is-king snobbery. Cormos provide fine wool for fine clothing and not much else. (I remember: it's from an article in the Winter 2007 issue of Spin-off magazine. It's an article on the Gutefar breed of Gotland. The article is by Judith MacKenzie McCuin.)
I bought an ounce of some lovely dyed mohair locks at the Spinning Loft and spun up a beautiful yarn. Using my Louet mini-combs, I loaded up the combs, alternating between Cormo and mohair until I had two layers of each. Then I combed the wool once, transferring and lightly blending it to the second comb. From that, I spun a single which I plied with a thin Cormo single.
The yarn is nicely soft. I'd always thought mohair was a bit coarse until Beth told me that I'd been feeling crappy mohair. The stuff I bought from her is soft and silky. Combining it with the soft Cormo was a wonderful sensory experience. I may have to do it again at Tuesday's spin night.
