The Independent Stitch

Comfort and joy: Lots of wool, and Clara Parkes' new book

I have here Clara Parkes' new The Knitter's Book of Wool: The Ultimate Guide to Understanding, Using, and Loving This Most Fabulous Fiber. I've been wanting to write about it for weeks—and actually have been making notes in this file for that long—but life got in the way. This is not a book I wanted to do a quick mention-and-run on (I've already mentioned it, because of my delay). Now I have the pleasure of sharing some of my thoughts.

Short take: Thanks, Clara, for explaining so clearly and well a lot of wool-geeky topics that knitters will find essential to their happy and effective use of this amazing fiber. And for the great collection of patterns. Readers, it's a treat. If someone doesn't give it to you in the next couple of weeks, treat yourself in January. It'll cheer you through the sloggy part of winter and get you ready for shearing season—oh, I mean festival time.

[FTC disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author because she asked me some questions about a few tricky matters as she was writing it and I gave her the best answers I could come up with. She asked very good questions that required me to put some interesting thoughts together. It was fun. I also have a bias in favor of Clara's writing. She's smart. She's clear. She's witty. I say those things not because she sent me a book but because they're true.]

Chapter 5, Patterns

Being somewhat contrarian, I began my excursion into the book's pages with chapter 5, the patterns. I have been digging into the qualities and varieties of wools for a very long time, and I skipped to the hands-on portion before I eased into the technical material.

There are 23 patterns, and if that's all you buy the book for you'll get your money's worth. The designs have been planned to offer opportunities for experimenting with the varying qualities of wool yarns—at least, of those wool yarns that knitters are likely to find most appealing (weavers are another story, and another book). The projects are mostly at the easy to intermediate skill levels, with a handful at the experienced end.

Contributing designers include Pam Allen, Cat Bordhi, M. Diane Brown, Nancy Bush, Evelyn Clark, Jane Cochran, Sivia Harding, Jennifer Tepper Heverly, Shelia January, Ilga Leja, Clara Parkes, and Sandi Rosner. All of these people understand their craft very well. They can devise inriguing-to-knit concepts capable of showcasing, instead of upstaging, the materials. Yet even the simplest projects contain nice, knitterly details that add a lot of appeal without unnecessary complication.

The items offered as templates for discovery are hats, sweaters, and shawls, fingerless mitts and mittens, socks, a shell, a baby set, a pillow, and a felted bag. I can't pick a favorite, because most could become standby patterns, knitted repeatedly for the simplicity and pleasure of working the design in different wools. In addition to being great in the making phase, the finished objects are the sort that will end up being used a lot. For example, the Three Bears family sweaters are perfect for playing with yarns and I could see them being worn for a very long time (made with good wools, that could be decades, possibly a couple of generations).

Of course, even though the idea is to experiment, the instructions do specify which yarns were used to knit the samples. Those yarns include solid, reliable mid-range 100% wools, interesting blends (mostly of fine fibers, which is where blending usually occurs in handknitting yarns), and some breed-specific wools, including a Perendale and a Bluefaced Leicester for socks, a couple of Cormo projects, a cardigan in Columbia, an Icelandic shawl, and Shetland for the felted bag.

There is enough information in the front of the book (about which I'll say more in a moment) to help readers select substitutes.

Chapter 1—What Is Wool?

Chapter 2—From Pasture to Pullover—Turning Wool into Yarn, and

Chapter 4—Plays Well with Others (blending)

Next I looked into the chapters on the technical aspects of wool fibers—what makes wools different from other fibers, and how we can have such a wide variety of wools, and what each of them is good for—and on wool processing and blending.

Clara has a remarkable ability to find effective explanatory metaphors for complex concepts. I admire this aptitude she has. It's in full force in these chapters, and if you want to you can even come away with an understanding of what the orthocortex and paracortex have to do with crimp (everything), in addition to, of course, what the heck crimp is and why it matters (spinners will know, but this knowledge has not been frequently offered to knitters).

My pencil came out at a few points in these chapters, in response to a mental "yes, but . . . " reaction (where the core statement was correct and I wanted to explore or refine a detail), but I'm a fiber nut and these reactions pertained to excruciatingly fine points that don't matter in the lively and engaging view that this book offers. (Example: a bit about standard deviations and wool grades. Really. The basic concept presented is correct. Only people like me will care that the SD varies for each grade in the USDA—not traditional—scale of grades, and if you care that much you probably already have the detailed info and/or have been carted off to a wool-padded cell.)

I'm especially fond of Clara's "quick tips for reading a generic wool yarn" (chapter 2), in which she tells how to evaluate by looking, shaking, tugging, smelling (yup—serious wool aficionados say "of course"), and twisting (or, rather, untwisting) a sample.

You'll gather here, appropriately, that wool is a sensual material. That's a good part of the delight in getting to know the wools, one that Clara understands thoroughly and presents well. As she points out repeatedly, getting to know a yarn is key to success in using it, and there's so much variety in wools that ultimately you have to educate yourself and then depend on your own thoughts about what a yarn will be good for.

Chapter 3: Meet the Breeds

Finally, I dug into what is for me the greatest fascination of wools: how the many different breeds offer a banquet of delights for fiber artisans. Clara talks about some of the basics of how wools differ from each other—fineness, staple length, crimp, luster, what the wool is suitable for, and felting qualities—and then divides the breeds she presents, which focus on those likely to come between knitters' fingers, into five categories: finewools, mediumwools, Down and Down-type wools, longwools, and dual-coated and primitive breeds. Wools don't always separate neatly into categories, but she offers good working clusters.

She presents a couple of descriptive paragraphs on each breed, and a box that ballparks facts about the wool. There are frequently photos of clean locks and of yarn spun from the wool. One difficulty (not under Clara's control) is that the book's design calls for the same size photo for each lock, so the Leicester Longwool and Teeswater, for example, appear to be the same length as the Merino and the Southdown. The layout is pretty and the length info is available in the "facts" box, so I'm just being picky about this.

Here are the breeds Clara covers—an excellent selection for the space available (and they're alphabetically arranged within each group):

Finewools:

• California Variegated Mutant (CVM)
• Cormo
• Merino
• Polwarth
• Rambouillet
• Romeldale
• Targhee

Mediumwools:

• California Red
• Columbia
• Corriedale
• Finnish Landrace (Finn)
• Montadale
• Tunis

Down and Down-type wools:

• Cheviot
• Clun Forest
• Dorset Down
• Dorset Horn and Poll Dorset
• Oxford
• Ryeland
• Shropshire
• Southdown
• Suffolk

Longwools:

• Bluefaced Leicester
• Border Leicester
• Coopworth
• Cotswold
• Leicester Longwool
• Lincoln
• Perendale
• Romney
• Teeswater
• Wensleydale

Dual-coated and primitives:

• Icelandic
• Jacob
• Navajo-Churro
• Scottish Blackface
• Shetland

When reading any information on wools, it's important to remember the vast diversity of fibers that are grown by different types of sheep (the variety continues to blow my mind, after all these years) and that wool is a natural substance, not one manufactured to specs. The guidelines are just that: an idea of what to expect, not rigid parameters from which the actual fibers never stray. (They do stray. It's wonderful.) The only way to tell what a wool is really like is to begin to play and experiment with it . . . which brings us back to the patterns. The book is organized logically and appropriately. I'm just an out-of-order reader.

Clara's book left me both satisfied and wanting more (more breeds; more info on the individual breeds). Which is good. Because it sends me back, energized, to The Project. EXCEPT that I want to be both spinning and ordering yarn and knitting up some of these patterns. That'll have to wait a bit. I hope not too long.

Those wools on the second drying rack from the top would make good Three Bears sweaters (Kerry Hill and I think that's the Devon Closewool, I've just got the photo here at the library, not the wool itself). Top right is too soft for the durability I'd want (Polwarth). Top left would be too heavy (Dartmoor). Take a look at that bottom right: neat-o! But not sweater wool (Rough Fell). (The dark ones are Polwarth, very soft, and Balwen, this sample quite coarse. On the right on the second from bottom is Gritstone.)

Bonus

Hungry for wonderful wool yarns? Clara has a nice resource list, also worth getting the book for. Here's a taster of sources, three of which are in Clara's list and four of which aren't. On the farm yarns, note that they do sell out. They are limited-growth-and-production items. If what you thought you wanted is gone, there will be something equally appealing in its place. That's part of the fun.

In alpha order, here are a few places to get started:

Bear Farm Yarns

Farm Wool Shop

Juniper Moon Farm

Marr Haven

Solitude

Spirit Trail Fiberworks

Sweet Grass

Tip of the iceberg. Many, many more. Some growers sell (out) at festivals and don't have websites. Others sell through etsy or web-based farm coops.

Happy hunting, happy knitting. Happy reading. Let Clara show the way.

Comfort and crimp

When life gets rocky, as it has been around here lately, balance and a sense of safe harbor for me can come from friends (two-footed, four-footed, and other), fibers (especially wool), and good books.

Tussah Redfurr has been doing her best to fill the hole in our lives that remains following the death of Ariel, our fifteen-year-old Border collie-ish.

It's amazing how many household habits revolved around our newly missing member.

I've greatly appreciated the comments and notes that have come in from friends, especially while our family has also been caring for a few human members with acute ailments. Those folks are on the mend now, and we are all, I hope, taking care of ourselves in the ways that work best for us.

For me, that often means wrapping myself in wool, both physically and mentally. For the former, I have sweaters, shawls, hats, and more (a nice woolly afghan I knitted more than a year ago is still at the publisher's for photography: I look forward to having it back! and I will be showing it here on a blog tour early in 2010).

For mental comfort and joy, I'm working on The Project. I also have a couple of nearly complete book reviews and some knitting updates that I hope to get posted in the near future.

Which brings me to the woolly photo of the day, about the importance of crimp. Put simply, crimp is waviness in a fiber. If there's lots of it, the fiber coils a bit like a spring. Crimp forms as part of the growth process of the fiber. Fibers can have more, less, or no crimp.

Here are two small sample skeins for The Project. They were wound on the same sample niddy-noddy, so if crimp were not a factor they would have identical circumference measurements.

The longer skein on the left is Optim^TM Fine, which is wool that has been processed in ways that reduce the individual fibers' micron counts (make them finer and softer), increase their length, and remove their crimp. Optim^TM still has many of wool's qualities (breathability, moisture-handling, and so on) but in many other ways it has become more silk-like (elasticity disappears and draping qualities increase). While the process can be applied to other wools, it's pretty much focused on use with 19-micron Merinos, turning them into 15.5- to 16-micron Optim fibers. (The micron counts refer to average fiber diameters: under Optim processing, the fibers get skinnier and longer.)

The shorter skein on the right is Polwarth, which by breeding is about 75% Merino and 25% Lincoln (details in The Project's book). I'd compare the Optim to Merino, but Polwarth was what was on the drying rack when I realized the value of a photo comparison. Same basic idea. The Polwarth skein can be stretched to extend as far as the Optim skein does, but when the Polwarth is relaxed it bounces back, while the Optim skein stays put.

For some applications, Optim (less crimp) is a better choice. Crimp-free fibers are more elegant. For drape that doesn't cling (at least in a low-static environment), crimp-free fibers will work better.

For other purposes, Polwarth or another crimpy fiber will excel. Crimpy fibers are cosier than crimp-free ones. For a fabric where elasticity and body-hugging qualities are important, crimp wins. For example, it makes socks that will pull over the heel easily yet won't fall down (at least if they're sized correctly!). Crimp also increases warmth: all those trapped air spaces increase the fabric's insulating qualities.

The person selecting the yarn for an envisioned purpose is the one who decides what matters.

Does all this mean crimp = comfort? It might.

Over the past few days, I've been enjoying the power of crimp, spinning samples of Merino (including its Optim variant), Polwarth, Rambouillet, and Île de France. This afternoon, I plan to begin on Corriedale and Bond. Later this week, I've got Cormo, Romeldale, CVM, and Targhee. All fine wools, each with an individual array of qualities.

We have some brushings from Ariel, saved over the last year or so. A lot got tossed (Ariel grew, and shed, fiber generously), but we have a nice small box full. My daughter asked last week whether I thought we could make some wrist warmers from the collected fiber. This seems like a perfect way to remember a pup who collected the nickname Snow-nose because she adored playing in the snow.

Ariel's fur is a lot like angora. It's fine, exceptionally soft, and has almost no crimp. It's warm. A little Ari-fur will have a big effect on a yarn (as the dog herself had a big effect in our lives), but it could use an infusion of crimp to give it enough elasticity to make good wrist warmers or fingerless gloves.

While I'm working up my samples, I'll be looking for the right match. A good fiber match takes into account fineness, color, and fiber length, in addition to the behavioral qualities (like crimp) that are desired in the finished yarn. Any of the fibers I'm spinning now would be a good match in fineness. The overall effect of Ari's fur spun by itself is a light gray. The colored Merinos and Rambouillets I'm using have shorter staple lengths than Ari's fiber. I have some exquisite colored Bonds here, but they're longer. I'm guessing one of the CVMs or the colored Romeldales will pair with the fur best. As a plus, they're rare wools. That bit of wool will also give the yarn some of the bounce that Ariel herself contributed to our lives.

Comfort and crimp.

Karakul lamb: wool too pretty to spin?

Working along on The Project, I've spent some time (again) recently with Karakul, the breed from which I learned so much many years ago. Some time in the 1970s, I ordered three Karakul fleeces at once: one white, one gray, and one black. If I recall correctly, they were my first whole fleeces. In washing and spinning them, I discovered how much the wool within a breed may vary not only in color but in length and texture and amount of grease and ease of processing.

Those fleeces became a rug that I wove and bartered for some training. I still remember the rug vividly, as well as the pleasant lessons those fleeces taught me.

In addition, some of the most memorably wonderful pieces I had the honor of presenting in Spin-Off during the years when I edited the magazine were Ellen Champion's Karakul rugs (Winter 1989 issue).

So I always approach Karakul with an anticipation of delight . . . and the expectation that I will learn something. Probably a lot. And that it will surprise me.

That's happened this week, as I've explored four different-colored lamb fleeces from Durakai Sheep and Fibre Arts, grown by sheep bred and raised by Marie and Ron Schmidt. I find myself facing an odd question, however: whether this wool is really too pretty just as wool to be spun. That question is almost inconceivable for me. I adore the transformation from fiber to yarn.

Yet when I see this:

I can't help but think of how the texture and the colors will be blended and muted by spinning. They're quite perfect just as they are.

Here's a sample from another lamb, along with the tiny skein I spun—which is, indeed, lovely. But is it lovelier than the fiber?

Both samples display the enchanting lamb-tips on the fibers, although they're a bit more obvious in the second photo: subsequent shearings won't have those characteristic, sweet, delicate curls.

While I have dutifully spun my samples for The Project, and I do like the results as yarns, I have made the skeins no larger than necessary because I'm so tempted to see what I can do to highlight the locks in their original forms, perhaps by spinning some adult Karakul into an even yarn and then weaving something where I'd lay narrow sections of the lamb locks into some of the sheds in a way that would display both the colors and the textures while holding them securely in place and protecting them from degradation. It would require thought and a bit of technical experimentation to get the effect I envision. And what might it become? A small rug? Sturdy tote for knitting? Book bag? Pillow for the couch? Jacket?

One thing about The Project: I keep getting ideas for ways I'd like to take each snippet of work I'm doing into new, deeper directions. Right now, I have to keep moving: on to the next sample, then to the next breed.

But I'd certainly like to come back to these charmers and explore the possibilities of highlighting their just-off-the-lamb form, which is exquisite.

Herdwick: like no other sheep, like no other wool

I'm way behind on blog posts: lots to say, not enough hours right now. Running fast for a deadline (that I now see in the rearview mirror and I'm still trying to meet it); there's hardly time for sleeping or eating.

But here's a quick note about what I spun up yesterday: Herdwick. Sheep, Herdwicks primary among them, are responsible for the landscape of England's Lake District. Beatrix Potter (locally Mrs. Heelis) raised Herdwicks and was the first woman to belong to the breed society. There are lots of good conservation stories involved with Mrs. Heelis, the Lake District, and Herdwicks, although I need to keep moving. . . .

Herdwick wool is truly distinctive. When we went looking for samples for The Project (deadline buzzing), the shepherd who ultimately supplied us with some wondered why in heck we wanted it. Admittedly, it's not usually the first choice among handspinners and textile crafters, although it's available as ready-to-use yarn, as well as finished products, and there's no reason not to play with it. What I like best about Herdwick is how unlikely a fleece it is, and how its qualities push my creativity. (They push industrial creativity, too: Herdwick wool provides the basis for naturally sourced insulation.)

But I need to get back to work, and I want to show some Herdwick first. The fleece Herdwicks grow consists of several types of fiber: a relatively soft, woolly undercoat that keeps the sheep warm (and independent: they live pretty well without much human intervention); a hairy outercoat that repels water (Herdwick wool gets wet more slowly and dries out faster than other wools); heterotype hairs, which change their character depending on the season (warmer in winter, more moisture-resistant in summer); and kemp, that wiry, stiff, twist-resistant fiber that in most other breeds is strictly discriminated against. In Herdwicks, kemp adds texture that just ups the ante on the game; there's enough that it becomes a factor, rather than a hindrance. These fiber types are so scrambled they resist separation, although you can tease them apart if you work at it.

Color, too: kemp is white, and while Herdwicks are born black they quickly begin turning gray and keep up with a steady lightening effect as they age, always tweedy with a range of shades mixed throughout the fleece (no spots).

Herdwick wool is normally quite long: 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 cm) is pretty usual, longer is possible. My samples were 2.5 to 3.5 inches (6.5 to 9 cm), making them a bit harder to handle than a more average fleece would have been. Nonetheless, I had an enjoyable afternoon and came up with a few bits that show the range of Herdwick:

 

Obviously, the top is a mass of (clean) raw fiber. The tiny medium gray skein on the left is some undercoat, imperfectly removed; it's quite soft, soft enough for a sweater or hat. The larger darker gray skein is the whole caboodle, spun up together. It could be woven into a coat. The light gray bristly skein on the right is mostly kemp and rough hairs, with some of the finer fibers left in to help hold the yarn together. The dimensionality of that yarn gets my idea-mill going.

FANTASTIC texture! And natural color fun. Makes me think of rugs, baskets, hairy bits added to something basically smooth . . . and to wonder how much undercoat I could get out and how it would work up into a sweater. As well as pricking my curiosity about whether the kemp might work in pottery glazing the way horsehair does.

Herdwick sheep heft or heaf to a particular spot of ground, staying put without fencing, and ewes teach lambs where they live. If a piece of land is sold, the sheep go with it. You can't just move another type of sheep onto this landscape because they'd wander all over the place (or need enormous amounts of fencing) and couldn't stand the climate (a few other breeds do well here, but Herdwicks are still outstandingly suited to it). Because of their geographic concentration, the Herdwick population was hard-hit by control efforts for foot-and-mouth disease in 2001.

Herdwicks have a lot to teach us, in many regards: about connection to land, about variety and experimentation, about loyalty and versatility. And about careful stewardship, in many aspects of life.

And now I need to get back to work. Next up is a trip to Kerry Hill (the wool, not the place), which is a totally different spot on the fiber rainbow: all white, just a bit lustrous, crisp but not too crisp, and with quite consistent fibers all in a narrow range of micron counts. . . .

 

Never a dull moment, although some folks might wonder. . . .

Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm: Community Supported Agriculture for fiber folk

Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm made it to the top ten in the Shine A Light award process, which I mentioned in my last post, although it was not among the three finalists. Because I can't imagine any more appropriate business to win this award, I'm guessing that in the final judges' review larger outfits with more traditionally defined communities got the edge.

In every regard that I can come up with, Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm is a clear winner. So I see its nomination as an opportunity for people within the textile world to vote for it in other ways that involve more than just a click of a mouse on a website, in ways that support the farm itself and also help spread the ideas that are coming out of MVFF.

Here's the gist: Susan Gibbs originated the idea of using the Community Supported Agriculture concept for a fiber-related enterprise—an idea that is absolutely brilliant, deserves to have the brightest of lights beamed on it, warrants huge direct support, and demonstrates a model that could, as I noted earlier this week, boost the chances for survival of rare breeds of sheep while introducing people who use fiber to materials they haven't had the opportunity to encounter. And more.

• Here's the Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm nomination on the Shine A Light website.
• Here's the farm's own website.

Part of Susan's mix of animals are Cotswolds, which are one of the rare breeds. She also has Angora goats (which grow mohair), and Cormo and Babydoll Southdown sheep. Overall, a lovely spectrum of fiber qualities, combined with the critter personalities she likes to spend her time with. . . .

Those who are not involved with fiber production tend to think only of the final product. Those who are involved with it—and that includes the shareholders in MVFF who have, thanks to Susan, access to information about daily farm life and individual animals—know that the goats and sheep (and roosters: poke around the farm site) have both breed-based approaches to life—just as, say, chihuahas and Golden retrievers differ—and unique personalities. Small farmers in particular will select types of animals that are compatible with the life of a unique farm family, in addition to being able to contribute the desired crops, such as fiber.

Here's some of what's cool about what Susan is doing at MVFF:

• creating community around the farm, where participants share the risks and the benefits inherent in any agricultural pursuit
• developing a different, more viable, economic model
• setting up a "lambcam" and other resources so folks can stay in touch with what's happening at the farm
• helping other potential shepherds get started, by supplying animals and support
• consulting to folks who'd like to change their ways of doing business to be more rewarding in all regards, including economically
• providing a focal point for "Yarn Storming," where fiber people with excess stash share their abundance with people who are having trouble obtaining materials

There's more, even though that's already a lot. But stepping back to the central definition and the reason for this post. . . .

What's Community Supported Agriculture?

Community Supported Agriculture has evolved over the past 20 to 30 years as a type of business partnership that provides non-food-producing people with safe, local sources and gives farmers more stable markets. Farms that operate on this model are called CSAs. Members, or shareholders, pay in advance to participate for the year. This money provides the farm with operating cash when it's most needed: during planting and growing. At harvest time, the farm's production is divided between the members.

In our city, we have had CSAs for vegetables and fruits (and, as a bonus, flowers) for quite a few years. Our family participated in the first CSA in the state of Colorado. There are now at least half a dozen food-oriented CSAs of varying sizes operating nearby. They range from tiny to relatively huge. The biggest ones operate partly as CSAs and partly as suppliers to local restaurants and grocery stores, and the word "huge" still applies only in relation to other small businesses.

In this year of multiple hailstorms, one of the larger CSAs, a farm that escaped the worst of the battering, shared produce with the members of a smaller CSA that had its crops wiped out repeatedly by the weather. In addition to the connections among the people in each CSA, the CSA groups also choose to be part of a larger, mutually supportive community.

CSA and Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm

Applying the CSA idea to fiber took a bright idea, a leap of faith, and a bunch of creative work. It also sets up so many connections: between growers and fiber users, between people and animals, between humans and landscapes.

There are more wonderful things to say and share about MVFF than I have time or space to cover. Browse around the website for fun and a lot of great ideas.

Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm offer shares for knitters/crocheters and for spinners. The flock includes Angora goats . . .

and the three breeds of sheep I mentioned:

• Cormos, which grow very fine, soft, long-stapled wool (ballpark 17-23 microns and 4 inches/10cm long).
• Babydoll Southdowns, which grow a wool that's on the fine side for the Down breeds (ballpark 23-31 microns and 3 inches/7.5cm). These are the variety of Southdown that is closest to the old-style breed, before industrial factors influenced development of the larger, commercial Southdowns.
• Cotswolds, one of the classic (and rare) longwool breeds (ballpark 33-42 microns and 8-10 inches/15-20cm).

Here's a quote from the website: "[A] Yarn CSA share makes a great gift for all the knitters and crocheters in your life. If you’re a spinner you can purchase a 'spinner’s share' in the form of raw fleece or roving. Our farm practices humane animal husbandry, we are 'predator friendly' and none of our animals are ever sold for meat."

Here's one of the secrets of being "predator friendly":

If you're not up for a share just now, don't want to wait for next year, or the shares have all been sold alerady (each CSA has a limited size . . . there's plenty of room for more CSAs!), the shop has yarns, needle-felted sheep, wool-filled pet beds, and other treats.

It's all about relationships

When I first mentioned the idea of CSAs as a way to provide more financial stability and incentive for people who are raising endangered breeds of sheep, one friend suggested that I could do this, setting up a system where I'd coordinate the purchase of shares by fiber folk, would channel money to the growers, and would send out shares of wool at shearing time.

This is a perfectly valid small business idea, and a fine one at that, but it wouldn't be what I'm talking about. I'm not the grower. I would be just another business standing in the middle between the producers and the shareholders. I couldn't offer the direct relationships which are key to the success of CSAs. (I've also got a few other commitments taking up my days . . . and nights!)

CSAs are about people helping people, not just providing a product (however fair trade, local, or sustainable). They're about our understanding with some immediacy (even when carried out through the internet) our interactions with the natural world, including specific places and living beings. They're about sharing the risks involved in producing farm products, and also about sharing the pleasures and the bounty. They're about connections between unique, identified, people and animals.

Even a large CSA will be small by today's business standards. One of the exciting things about them is spreading the idea. Our local veggie-and-fruit CSAs have helped each other get started and grow, and also, as we've seen this year, have helped each other smooth over some weather-inflicted rough spots.

While a CSA has to operate successfully as an economic entity, Susan Gibbs at MVFF has given animals to others who want to start growing fiber. She also provides consulting services to farmers who want help with creative ideas that will set up new relationships between people and make life more rewarding and enjoyable for everyone involved. She does, and should, charge for providing that help—her experience can shorten other folks' path to forming more nurturing communities and more solid financial arrangements.

So let's take this opportunity to shine a BRIGHT, BRIGHT light on Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm! It's a winner in all the ways that matter.

____

Images copyright © Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm. Used by permission.

Santa Cruz wool: how to show a rare breed's magic with a less-than-ideal sample?

I've written before about Santa Cruz wool, in conjunction with a post about making the best of a less-than-ideal wool sample. Now that it's time to do my write-up on Santa Cruz wool, I have been distracted by my desire to show at least some of the capacity of this breed's wool, which is not evident in the sample I've already spun.

Santa Cruz is one of the rarest sheep breeds. It's on the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy's priority list with critical status. There's a long story behind this—one that I won't go into right now, because my goal is to highlight the superb qualities of the fiber. No one knows exactly when or how sheep got onto Santa Cruz Island off the coast of California, somewhere between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. They were well established by the mid-nineteenth century. By other people's best guesses, the breed was created through some combination of Merino, Rambouillet, and possibly Churro. The sheep don't look like Merinos or Rambouillets, although their wool is clearly fine enough to have been influenced by those breeds.

Remembering the magic, and struggling with the available fiber

What is most stunning about the fiber is its combination of fineness and bounce.

When I coordinated the Save the Sheep Project for Spin-Off Magazine in the late 1990s, one of the entries was a shawl that Nancy Van Tassel made from Santa Cruz wool shorn from one of the few rescued sheep. I've seen and handled a lot of handspun yarn over about thirty-five years of intense involvement with spinning. That shawl and the yarn it was made from have stood out vividly in my memory for the combination of softness and resilience. I have never felt anything like it.

When I spun my sample last year, I got what looked like the best possible option out of the wool sample we were able to obtain—and with Santa Cruz, we are fortunate to be able to get a sample at all. With a breed this rare, the primary focus of husbandry is simply keeping enough animals alive to keep the breed going and, ideally, with enough genetic diversity for a healthy population. Wool quality is not at the top of anyone's agenda. If the genes are there, a future year's wool quality can be tended to and the crop will have some value. At this dire survival level, there's no well-defined market for the wool anyway.

Here's the sample I spun then . . . there was no way it could be regular, because of the fiber quality:

I was disappointed but felt like I needed to settle for what I had and move on. It didn't have the "life" that I remember so well from Nancy Van Tassel's contribution to the Save the Sheep efforts, but she had control over her fiber source and some experience in spinning the breed. Last year, that skein was the best I thought I could do, perhaps because I wasn't yet desperate enough.

I've been having trouble getting the breed written up, and I finally realized why. I want, somehow, to be able to at least hint at the magic that I know, thanks to Nancy, Santa Cruz wool is capable of. My existing sample didn't do that. I had no idea what I could pull off that might. But I determined to go at it one more time.

Throwing out all the rules

This is where all standard guidelines for wool prep and spinning have to go out the window, and vision and stubbornness take over, seasoned with a pragmatic awareness that perfection is simply out of reach.

Background: I had an OFDA computerized analysis done on a small tuft of this fiber. I'm having scans run for most of the very rare wools because we don't have much data on their characteristics. A data sample of one or two or five entries isn't much at all, but it's better than nothing.

Fineness: The average micron count of the piece I pulled (clean) was 23.2. That's fine. A full 97.3% of the fibers were under 30 microns, the industrial line of demarcation for fibers to be used in next-to-the-skin applications. The finest fibers in the sample were 14 microns; there were just a few fibers at the sample's maximum of 32, 33, and 34 microns.

Fiber length: 35 mm, or 1.4 inches. That's the kicker.

Because of the short fibers, and the fact that it was difficult to separate out anything resembling a staple, I used fine hand carders to prepare the wool for my first sample. This was the obvious, reasonable, normal choice for a short, jumbled fiber. The many neps and second cuts were just something I had to live with. I did end up choosing a drafting technique that would minimize the effects of these elements on the finished yarn.

This weekend, bullheadedly determined to see if I could do a better job of showing what the Santa Cruz wool is capable of, I decided to try combing. COMBING. Fiber less than 1.5 inches long. Right.

Okay, here goes.

From yuck to yum, believe it or not

Raw Santa Cruz wool, as I received it, with gratitude that I had any at all:

These look and feel like what would be skirtings for a "normal" fleece, but as I've mentioned this wool is probably just a shepherd's afterthought of survival care for the living animals. Based on my experience in washing, at least part of this came from the rear of the animal—not prime fleece territory. I had the sample above available to photograph in its original state because when the wool first arrived I only washed the portion I needed. It wasn't inspiring enough to wash the whole batch. That ended up being okay. I used Dawn dishwashing liquid, which was what I had at the time. I've since shifted to Unicorn Power Scour and took on the rest of the raw wool with that resource on my side. I knew the Power Scour wouldn't overclean (thus making the wool harsh or brittle), so I used more than I usually would and I ran the fiber through three, rather than two, cleansing baths, with one pre-soak and two rinses, using a mix of half hot-tap water and half boiling water from pots on the stove and not letting the water cool off for more than 20 minutes on each cycle.

Here's what the clean version looked like:

Not beautiful, but compared to what I started with it was greatly improved. I wasn't concerned about the flecks of dirt, because although they tend to stick around in carding and cause problems, they normally drop out in combing.

Most combs couldn't handle such a short, fine fiber. Fortunately, I have a pair of two-row Louet mini-combs that I thought might do the trick. Even so, because the fibers were so jumbled I needed to load the wool onto the combs not-quite-randomly, searching out bits of the fiber mass that seemed to have long-enough fibers and simply snagging them onto the teeth of the mini-combs as best I could. While I combed through two complete passes, I didn't look for perfection. That goal would have left me with zero fiber.

I pulled off the little sausages of prepared fiber with my fingers—there wasn't really enough there to draw off a sliver with a diz. The clump of fiber on the left in the photo above was the "waste" (which I'll use to stuff something with), and the three little bits of fiber just to its right are representative of what's in the clump—really short and useless. While the good-to-waste fiber ratio is low, I was starting with truly unpromising raw material and the end result. . . .

got me what I wanted.

How to show the magic?

I still don't know how to show, in photographs, what the difference is.

After I washed my new little skein, I handed it to my daughter and said, "Just play with it."

She immediately started stretching it. "Spandex????"

"Just wool. Magical wool."

Let's try to get a hint here, with the relaxed skeinlet:

And, against the same piece of flooring, the skeinlet extended, but not overextended:

With a normal wool, I'd expect to be able to stretch a similar skeinlet to half to three-quarters of the width of that second, righthand section of flooring. Not all the way across it.

One more counterintuitive comment: You'd normally think that a carded preparation, woolen spun, would be more elastic than a combed, worsted-spun yarn. (In this case, the first sample was spun with a hybrid draw, because there were too many irregularities to tolerate a long draw, but carding generally encourages more elasticity than combing.) In this case, the combed, worsted-spun yarn is the one with the maximum elasticity.

A few thoughts

If there were a premium-rate market for the wool for the most endangered breeds of sheep, like the Santa Cruz, the people who are keeping the animals alive would have more reasons to care for the fleece in ways that handspinners and other fiber artists could value. This type of support would need to be easy for the shepherds to set up and maintain; it would require additional attention to the wool during the year, and would need to repay that effort and then some. Because I'm preparing a post for later in this week about the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) business model as it applies to fibers, I'm impelled to wonder what would be involved for growers of the rarest breeds to set up subscription-based CSA-type groups to give them extra income to help fund their genetic conservation work. The groups would need to be small, because the yields would be relatively small—too small for the more "normal" breed-specific marketing efforts that are helping some other breeds remain financially viable.

There have got to be some ways that fiber folk can give an extra boost to the prospects of a breed like the Santa Cruz.

I'd hate to think the magic might vanish entirely.

Clockwise from left:

• First sample skein, prepared on fine hand carders and spun with a hybrid draw. Nothing special.
• Second sample skein, prepared on Louet two-row mini-combs and spun with a worsted draw. Captured some of the magic!
• White, clean Santa Cruz fiber.
• Black, raw Santa Cruz fiber—the breed has color genetics, and I have a sample but not enough to wash or work with.

Visiting Soays (rare sheep!)

I'm still on the road—getting ready to leave a motel in Elko, Nevada—so there will be photos here but not much text.

A couple of days ago, I had the pleasure of visiting some folks who have Soay sheep. Soays are as close as we have to the original domesticated sheep. They were located only on one island well offshore of western Scotland, and may have been there for thousands of years. A small population on a rock out being battered by the Atlantic Ocean is vulnerable, so now there are satellite flocks elsewhere.

Priscilla and Steve Weaver at Saltmarsh Ranch have a large satellite flock and are working on maximizing genetic diversity within the breed. Steve is a geneticist. They have both British and American Soay flocks. They are in love with their Soays. It's very easy to see many reasons why.

Soays in the morning:

Soays are tiny sheep, which doesn't exactly show in these photos.

 

Their friend and guardian, Isaac, who is significantly larger than they are:

He keeps coyotes away. There are four guardian dogs with the Soays at Saltmarsh Ranch. I fell in love with Isaac.

Also Molly (Mollie?), the herding associate, who injured a leg recently and has to be on forced rest for a bit.

Although, as you can see, she is always on the alert for a bit of work she might do:

Maybe she could help????? With ANYTHING?????

These Soays are clearing underbrush: eating star thistle and blackberry vines in preference to the grass. They'll eat the grass if all the good weeds are gone.

These are young Soays:

We went out to look over and snap photos of the rams, several of whom are going to other farms fairly soon (with genetically diverse ewes). They are identified as to lineage by the tape on their horns (all Soay rams and many Soay ewes have horns).

 

I have more photos, but I don't have more time at the moment. There's a great article on Soays in the January/February 2008 issue of Hobby Farms magazine.

Yes, Soay wool is fine and spinnable. There isn't much per sheep each year and it tends to be on the short side, and it roos (sheds) instead of being shorn, which makes gathering it a challenge. The quality of the wool, however, is part of what makes Soays the link between wild sheep (which you can see in their coloring and some of their behavior) and early domestication.

And now I-80 calls me again.

On the road again: Lincoln sheep, and Woodland Woolworks

Technically, I'm on my way home from Sock Summit and visiting with family. It's a working trip: I'm not getting to take side trips to see the museums and other sites for which I see signs along the way. But I've planned in a few even more intriguing stops en route.

Yesterday I stopped briefly to visit some Lincolns and Romneys being raised by Christiane Payton at North Valley Farm, in the wine country outside Salem (I also saw, in passing, rose growers, and the nurseries from which many garden shops get their plants . . . fascinating agricultural area). Alas, I didn't get any photos of the Lincolns, which were my primary interest. First, it was a very hot day and the sheep were (sensibly) hanging out in the shade, where it was hard to get a good photo. Second, I wasn't there long enough and I tend to forget I've got a camera when I'm mostly listening to someone who is passionate and smart about what she's doing, which in Christiane's case is breeding Lincolns for their color. Gorgeous!

I initially contacted Christiane looking for white Lincoln, when I realized that for the book I'm working on I had samples for colors but not the basic white stuff. It sounded as though she had lovely fleece (she does), and she graciously brought some white samples for me to pick up at Sock Summit.

She also tucked in a few of her colors. I was happily blown away, and wanted to see a bit more of what she's up to, so I took a quick side-trip to visit with Christiane and her flock.

Then I stopped at Woodland Woolworks for a diz. That wasn't all I got. Even though Carlton, Oregon, is a very small town, I had to go into the post office and ask how to find 100 E. Washington. This is what it looks like when you get there:

Lots of great warehouse/showroom type browsing, and a stash-enhancement room of closeouts. I didn't plan to try any spinning wheels, but when they're sitting there with fiber next to them and you've been invited to try anything you'd like, I couldn't resist. A lot of new wheels have been put into circulation since I was editing Spin-Off magazine and had ready access to trying wheels at the SOAR marketplace.

I did get my diz. I got two, while I was at it. My knitting-needle gauge has been working fine in that capacity, but it needs to be in the knitting bag again.

Fleeces: variations and consistencies within and between breeds, using the Leicesters as an example

This post will consist of ideas and musings, not pronouncements.

Having been fascinated by breed-specific wools for years, especially the rare breeds that will vanish if we do not have adequate financial support for the shepherds who want to care for flocks of them, I have jumped off the deep end (again) in another study of fibers.

This is the Big Project that I've been talking about. It will result in a book. Carol Ekarius and I are working on it together; I'm responsible for the fiber aspects. Done right, it would take another several decades. We have deadlines (although they have flexed as our vision has expanded, they still exist). The results will not be perfect. However, I tell myself that I've already put several decades of preparatory work into The Project, and whatever I accomplish now will help someone else in the future take this work to its next step (maybe I'll even have the opportunity to take it farther, after The Project has been completed). Similarly, I am, of course, depending on the labors and observations of those who have written down their thoughts and ideas about wool before me.

I'm going to use the Leicesters as an example for this scattered group of thoughts-without-conclusions. In these thoughts, I'm only looking at the wool from these breeds, not all the other aspects of how and why they came to exist as separate entities, what sizes the sheep are, what ecological and cultural niches they fill, and so on.

A quick overview of "the Leicesters"

"The Leicesters" is not an official group of sheep breeds. People who know very little about sheep think all sheep are the same, except most are white and a few are black. People who have dug a little deeper and know about breeds get confused by the Leicesters because of the similarities of their names—Leicester Longwool, Border Leicester, and Bluefaced Leicester. These breeds are, indeed, genetically related. Their wools can be radically different . . . or, in some cases, a bit similar. More different than similar, though, at least when seen from where I'm sitting.

Leicester Longwools came first, a breed refined during the 18th century from early Lincolns and Leicesters (geographic variants of the same ancient breed). They have a lot of other names, including English Leicesters.

Border Leicesters have also been around since the 18th century, but their breeding was based in part on the then-recently-developed Leicester Longwools.

Bluefaced Leicesters are the relative newcomers, having been developed early in the 20th century by selecting Border Leicesters that had "blue" faces (black skin under white wool) and . . . most importantly for fiber folk . . . fine fleeces.

Differences between breeds, looking at "the Leicesters" all at once

Here are some samples from the three breeds (clean locks, shearings from different sheep for each):

It's easy enough to see the relationship between the Leicester Longwool and the coarser (left) lock from the Border Leicester, as well as between the finer (right) Border Leicester and the Bluefaced Leicester.

Variations within a breed: Bluefaced Leicester

The photo also hints that it may be easier to predict what type of fiber you'll get when you have a Bluefaced Leicester fleece, as compared to a Leicester Longwool or a Border Leicester.

Although a sampling of two means nothing, there is a useful bit of information behind the consistency that we think we perceive in these Bluefaced Leicester locks: the breed standards for Bluefaced Leicester are narrowly defined, and the wool tends to be in the range of 24 to 28 microns (equivalent to Bradford counts and USDA grades of 56s to 60s), and the staple lengths are between 8 and 15cm (3 and 6 inches).

Those are, for wools, quite narrow ranges. (And just look at that crimp: all of the Leicesters have delightful crimp, although of different character.)

Differences between breeds: Leicester Longwool and Border Leicester

Here's where matters get complicated and it gets harder to make generalizations.

These are older breeds with less stringent breed society constraints. There's much more variability in the wool right from the start, and that variation is also pushed in specific directions by breeders' preferences, both in their individual goals for their flocks and in different parts of the world. In addition, white and natural-colored sheep don't have the same wool profiles.

Overall, Border Leicesters can be slightly finer than Leicester Longwools, although their micron count and Bradford/USDA ranges very nearly overlap (the finest Border Leicester is not, on paper, quite as fine as the coarsest Bluefaced Leicester, although it's very close). Border Leicesters can also be as strong (or coarse) as Leicester Longwools. (Except for . . . oops, that's a digression for another time.)

Let's say Border Leicesters run from 29.25 to 40 microns (40s to 50s) in the British Isles and North America, and between 32 and 40 microns (36s to 46s) in New Zealand and Australia.

And let's say Leicester Longwools run from 32 to 38 microns (40s to 46s) in the British Isles*, North America, and Australia, and between 37 and 40 microns (36s to 40s) in New Zealand.

* (except for British natural-colored Leicester Longwools, which, according to the British Coloured Sheep Breeders Association, range from 37 to 46 microns [40s+])

Oh, and staple length. Both of these breeds can be shorn twice a year, so depending on whether you are looking at a half-yearly shearing or a full year's growth, you may see between 12.5 and 25cm (5 and 10 inches) for the Border Leicester and between 12.5 and 35cm (5 and 14 inches) for the Leicester Longwool.

There are a lot of possibilities in these two breeds. Yet we can still draw some conclusions. I won't do that now, because that's the work of The Project, and I have to read, spin, and mull a lot for each breed in order to come up with something resembling conclusions. I'll probably be right in my conclusions part of the time, and wrong part of the time. I hope there won't be much of the latter, but I also hope that whatever "wrongness" ends up in The Project spurs someone else to dig even deeper.

Wool in the hand

Numbers can be helpful, but spinning the fibers tells so much more. It has seemed to me, over time, that fibers with exactly the same numerical identifiers—micron count, staple length, and so on—can feel significantly different, likely because of differences in the patterns of the scales on the surface of the fiber, possibly the way the cells that make up the insides of the fiber are arranged, and other things we don't usually get to look at in detail.

Nor do we need to, if we take each fleece in front of us on its own terms, having trusted (and trained) our fingers to feel the individuality of THIS fleece by comparing it to other fleeces we've spun before. (The same goes for working with commercially spun breed-specific yarns, although some of the most subtle individualities are smoothed over in large-batch processing.)

Leicester Longwool

Glorious, lustrous, heavy in the hand, Leicester Longwool makes me think of rugs, and durable bags, and how beautiful and clear the colors will be when it is dyed . . . because of that luster. It could also be used to make interesting large-scale laces. It could make a lovely, nicely draping blanket, and for someone who is into making home furnishings it would also make great pillow or upholstery fabric—very hard-wearing! There's something about that crimp, too, that wants to be part of a fleece rug or heavily textured tapestry . . . especially in that shorter fleece on the right.

If I decided not to use the locks as locks or simply flick them open and then spin, I would comb both of these fleeces, to keep the fibers parallel and thus conserve as much of the shine as possible all the way through to the finished yarn. I'd use my Viking combs (I love my Viking combs). The fleece on the left would be challenging to comb, because of its length—not something for a beginner. It would require very long strokes to keep it from tangling. The fleece on the right would be better for someone who is either new to combing or impatient.

Border Leicester

With Border Leicester, I'd have to do more evaluation before planning a project or the preparation technique. At the finer end of the breed's wool range (something like the fleece on the right), I might be inspired to make a hard-wearing everyday sweater or mittens or socks. At the coarser end, I'd be looking again (like the Leicester Longwool) at sturdy rugs or bags, wall hangings, and the like. A coarser fleece with long staples (like the one on the left) could be used to make a fleece rug or blanket. There is plenty of luster to these fibers and they will show off dyed colors very nicely.

That longer fleece on the left would require some experience to comb. It might be fun to simply flick the locks open at both ends and spin. See the different length samples in the fleece on the right? It would be best to sort that fleece and prepare the different sections in different ways. The shorter bits might be carded and the longer ones combed.

The fleece on the right could become a nice sweater. The one on the left would, perhaps, rather be spun fine and woven into a coat.

Bluefaced Leicester

As we've noted, the Bluefaced Leicesters are more predictable, although husbandry, health, and weather all can produce fleeces that don't fit the regular profile.

  

The wool from Bluefaced Leicesters is soft enough to be used for next-to-skin wear. It will make lovely sweaters, scarves, mittens, gloves, blankets—it's easy to see why this wool is so popular (and it's easy to forget that there are jobs the other Leicesters can do much better). The staples are often long enough to comb, and some fleeces might be amenable to carding as well. Again, the luster means dyed colors will be clear and bright.

Conclusions, which I said I wasn't going to provide

The Leicesters share some genetics, and propensities toward luster, well-defined crimp, and enough staple length to suggest spinning from the lock, flicking, or combing as the first ideas about preparation for spinning.

Yet depending on which breed you select and which individual's fleece (from which year) you have, you could end up deciding to make anything from an heirloom-durable rug to a lacy camisole.

Organizing fibers for the big project

There will be two versions of this post. I hit the wrong button and published it at the note-taking stage. If you're reading this note, you likely have the full post.

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Keeping the fibers for this project organized and constantly identified is a job in itself. Having edited Spin-Off for so many years, I knew how challenging it can be to try to remember which of several closely related fiber samples the one you set on that table over there was, expecting that of course you could remember what it was . . . oops, that was day before yesterday, something came up that needed to be dealt with immediately, and was that the Dorset from project A, or the Hampshire from project B? Dang.

Anyway, I started off with what I hoped would be a flexible, strong organizing system. It evolved slightly. For example, instead of trying to economize to the penny on labels, as I did at the start, I now print plenty in both sizes and keep coming up with ways in which they're handy to have.

So the first large chunk of work to be done when I receive new fibers involves entering them in the inventory sheets (two separate databases), printing up their labels, and making the bags and cards that will keep everything sorted from receiving through photography, and perhaps beyond.

I print two sizes of labels. The large ones go mostly on the bags, and the small ones go mostly on organizing tools. Extra labels are top center. To their left, a tag for a sample skein (there will probably be at least one more skein label, which is a reason to have extra small labels, but I start with one). The large card next to the tag stays with the wool during washing and other processing. The small card goes at the edges of photos so we don't have to keep massive notes about what fiber was in which photograph. We shoot the tiny card at the edge of the image and it can be cropped out later. Small labels also get used when I pull a sample for OFDA testing (scanning for the physical fiber qualities, including length and micron counts).

There are two large plastic bags, one that will stay with the bulk fiber supply and one, marked "samples," that will go in the file that will be transported to the photo shoot. There are two small plastic bags, one for raw wool locks and one for clean wool locks. All of the labels on the plastic bags have to have clear tape put over them or they won't stay stuck to the bags. (There's one more larger card with a large label that goes in a card file, a physical inventory record, which comes in very handy despite all the computer database information.)

Once the fiber's checked in and the organizing tools are prepared, it's time for washing. This is when fibers will most likely get confused, so I need to pick batches that can be distinguished from each other and that fit my various colander-and-bowl configurations, which have different capacities.

In this morning's first batch, I have three black wools and one white. The three blacks are easy to tell apart, even though two are Soays. My larger cards from the photo above (they're old business cards) stay in the room with the fibers being washed, then travel with them to the drying racks and stick around until the fibers are dry and back in their labeled bags. I've already pulled the grease locks on all of these, of course.

Here are the pots of water on the stove, heating up to supplement the tap water for getting the wool clean.

And here are some of the washing-related systems: the baggies in the white not-a-wastebasket are the fibers currently in the tub. The box contains a few of the fibers next in the lineup (there is another large box to its left, out of sight . . . I'm pretty well caught up, but got five new samples yesterday). The post-its on the outside of the box have small labels on them. With more than forty file boxes in action, it's good to be able to tell easily what's where. The bright yellow means the sample started as grease fleece. Light yellow means it started as clean fiber. There would be a black checkmark on those labels if they'd been washed already. I'll have more shots of boxes later.

Okay, I'd better get this really posted. The truncated version would be pretty funky.