The Independent Stitch

Dreaming of Shetland: Thank you!

Friday’s post about my visit to help with shearing a lot of Shetland sheep, like that trip itself, requires an array of thank-yous that would not fit within even my generally overlong post tolerances. Neither that post nor the trip that was its subject would have happened without the Dreaming of Shetland project, which was conceived by Donna Druchunas one morning in February 2013 and has ended up being much larger than she could possibly have imagined—or she would perhaps never have mentioned it out loud, although I’m amazed, glad, and grateful that she did.

Donna was aware that I wanted to continue my research into sheep and wools, following the completion of The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, but I didn’t have ideas about how to support that work. While Fleece and Fiber counts as one of the major accomplishments of my life and dedicating four solid years to the project was one of the best decisions I’ve ever been backed into (by myself and others), income to authors from book publishing tends not to do much in the way of covering expenses, except if those authors are, say, folks like Stephen King. I knew what I wanted to do to follow up on that work but not how I would manage it.

I’m also both reserved (except when I’m talking about wool or sheep—as some of you may have discovered) and Midwestern by birth and upbringing (motto: Do Not Ask for Help, Just Work Harder). Thus I have been stunned, delighted, and flummoxed by the outpouring of support embodied in this project.

Here’s some of what the Dreaming of Shetland project has meant, and accomplished, so far:

2013 was a tough year in my life, and included a series of deaths of people and spirits close and important to me.

Places I was able to go and things I was able to do because of Dreaming of Shetland not only furthered  the research project but made the year far more positive and forward-looking than it would otherwise have been.

The first “extra” came in mid-May, when I stayed in the Midwest for a couple of days after teaching at the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival and took a side trip to Indiana to visit Theresa Gygi’s flock of fine-fleece Shetlands at Under the Son Farm. This was not all that long after lambing, and there were both plenty of bouncing young ones and lots of fleeces to look at and learn about.

Greencastle, Indiana, May 2013

_____

While I was at the farm, I got an emergency phone call from my sister. I flew home, and then to Washington to be with my mother during her final week, and for a while longer with the rest of the family in the aftermath of her death.

One week after Mom died, I was at the North American Shetland Sheepbreeders’ Association (NASSA) annual meeting at the Estes Park Wool Market, looking at and thinking about and talking with people who know Shetland sheep. Mom was a big supporter of my work, even after the dementia removed a lot of her ability to remember the details and the stroke severely limited her ability to talk. She would have liked that I was in good company just then, doing work close to my heart.

Like the Indiana trip, my participation in that event was possible because of the initial purchasers of the Dreaming of Shetland e-book. It was one of the most healing things on the planet that I could have been doing. Thank you.

Estes Park, Colorado, June 2013

_____

In August, my daughter and I were able to take a detour on another trip and visit the Hilger Hereford Ranch in Montana. We got to see some of the sheep up in the mountain area where they work on weed control. I’m fascinated by the adaptability of this breed to different landscapes. The dry mountain western U.S. provides a dramatic contrast to Shetland.

Gates of the Mountains, Montana, August 2013

_____

Last fall, shortly after my friend Ginny’s and my cousin Christie’s deaths, I flew to Scotland, including time in Orkney and Shetland. This trip had been planned long in advance and the ticket and many other arrangements were already covered. What the Dreaming of Shetland project made possible was my gathering of resources to bring home for study: books, videos, and other treasures. It also allowed me to visit historical sites, and helped with lodging and meals. It was like having very specialized and effective wings. Thank you.

Shetland (Mainland), October 2013

_____

Also in 2013, Jeane deCoster of Elemental Affects Yarns asked if I’d like to come to Montana in spring 2014 to help with the shearing of Catherine Campbell’s large flock of Shetlands. Catherine was at Estes Park for the NASSA meeting, but because of a death in her family we didn’t get to meet then—thus the excursion in August. Because of Dreaming of Shetland, I already knew that I could say yes to the invitation extended by Catherine and Jeane with some assurance that when the time came I’d be able to afford the trip. Last month, I did go to Montana and help with shearing—thanks to Dreaming of Shetland.

 

Gates of the Mountains, Montana, March 2014

_____

Since November 2012, Janet Ellison of Fibre-East in the UK and I have been working on the visa situation with regard to US fiber instructors teaching in the British Isles. We’re about 90% finished with that job and it looks about 90% certain that I’ll be teaching at Fibre-East at the end of July. Because I’ll be so close (relatively speaking), I plan to go back to Shetland for more research in conjunction with that trip. Even though I filled every minute of my time there in October 2013 and learned a ton, I barely began to scratch the surface. This year I’ll be able to take my questions to their next level. This is also something that Dreaming of Shetland is making possible. Thank you all yet again.

What you are all accomplishing with this project? It is huge.

What I will do because of this project? More research! And my best to share the results, in as many ways and through as many channels as possible. Right now my head is buzzing with possibilities that aren’t coming together yet—but they will. This is just part of the process, and part of what makes it exciting.

_____

And now to be specific. . . . 

THANK YOU! to

• the instigators and creators of the Dreaming of Shetland project, without which I could not have done anywhere near as much research as I have already accomplished (with more to come):

• Donna Druchunas
• Anne Berk
• Sarah Jaworowicz
• Susan Santos

• the contributors of content to the Dreaming of Shetland project (check out one or two links a day and enjoy their abundance of creativity and generosity to the communities of which they are a part, including this fiber one . . . and I sure hope I haven't missed anyone! Let me know if I have . . . ):

• Deb Accuardi
• Janine  Bajus
• Anne Berk
• Amanda Berka [Ravelry]
• Cat Bordhi
• JC Briar
• Beth Brown-Reinsel
• Ann Budd
• Ava Coleman
• Linda Cortright
• Susan Crawford
• Jeane deCoster
• Donna Druchunas
• Priscilla Gibson-Roberts [Ravelry]
• Ann Glassley [Ravelry]
• Franklin Habit
• June Hall
• Hunter Hammersen
• Sivia Harding
• Lynn D. T. Hershberger
• Shelia January [Ravelry]
• Jennifer Leigh
• Lynette Meek
• Cheryl Oberle
• Nancy Powell Thompson [Ravelry]
• Betty Salpekar
• Susan Santos
• Kristi Schueler
• Myrna Stahman
• Jeny Staiman
• Meg Swansen
• Stephannie Tallent
• Gladys We [Ravelry]
• Jill Wolcott 

• every individual who has pitched in for a copy of Dreaming of Shetland. Thank you! It's an amazing value for you folks to receive, and it is making an incredible difference to what I can accomplish in learning about sheep and wool, information that I am sharing, and will continue to share, with the fiber community—as thoroughly as I can!

___

 

The initial information written about the Dreaming of Shetland project said that it would help me "spend the next year exploring Shetland sheep and Shetland wool.” We’re already over a year out, and I’m still going strong, with a lot of work done and the sense that I’m still just getting started, because it’s such a rich subject to study. I have many topics I want to explore about sheep and wool in general, and the Shetland work is foundational to them all. I thought that would be the case when I started (thus the focus), and the more deeply I go into the interlaced topics the more apparent it becomes that this is true. I’m going to be on this path for a while more.

 

Right now, I mostly need time: time to process references that I’ve located; to think; to spin; to bring my thoughts together; to write—and to do more research. Thanks to Dreaming of Shetland, those activities are all in the works.

 

I get notifications when people buy copies of the book. Each time one of those comes into my mailbox, I think two things: first, “Wow! somebody else gets to enjoy this amazing publication and discover the work of these gifted contributors!" and second, “Oh, my, this is another vote of confidence in what I’m doing"—and then I tell myself, “Just take it in—breathe, accept, and go back to work."

 

The Dreaming of Shetland book got so big (and was so much work for the volunteer editors and designers) that it’s being released in sections. Buy once, get them all. It’s electronic-format only (believe me, in any other format something like this would never have gotten off the ground). It’s almost, but not quite, complete as I write this. And it’s a treasure that will bring joy of many sorts to many people for many years.

 

So thank you, everyone.

 

And now I’ll get back to work.

 

 

______

 

P.S. One of the things I would like to have access to is genetic data (and analysis) from different flocks of Shetland sheep showing their interrelationships, as well as their relationships to other breeds, specifically North Ronaldsay, Soay, and old-style Norwegian short-tails (spaelsaus). If anybody knows where we might get our hands on information of this type—now or in the future—please get in touch with me! We’re working on some leads to generate this kind of resource material, but it’s all in a to-be-developed state and rather complicated to pull off. Which doesn’t mean we won’t figure out how to get it done. But there’s no point in re-doing work that has already been, or is being, undertaken. So far, we don’t know of any. We’d love to hear that it exists. The “we” is me and a bunch of other folks who are traveling parallel paths on this journey of discovery.

Wool and the idea of terroir

This is another post about my trip to mainland Scotland, Orkney, and Shetland, although it's also another digression from the chronological/topical sequence. It's about fleeces.

And because my blog posts are never long enough, I'll add that the Rare Breeds Survival Trust has just released its 2014 Watchlist of at-risk breeds. New to the list is Devon Closewool, previously geographically but not numerically endangered; new to last year's list was Border Leicester. Moving to improved categories are North Ronaldsay, Leicester Longwool, and Hill Radnor. Let's keep on using these special wools and supporting the shepherds and their flocks! And now, on a very closely related topic. . . .

____

We hear about terroir with regard to foods, for the most part: the concept began, I think, with wine, and refers to "the complete natural environment in which a particular wine is produced, including factors such as the soil, topography, and climate." The dictionary most easily accessed from my place in the coffee shop this morning goes on to discuss goût de terroir, which means "the characteristic taste and flavor imparted to a wine by the environment in which it is produced" (the quotes are from the quick-reference dictionary on my Mac computer).

The borrowing of concepts from one area of interest to another can lead to meaning-drift in the terms. That can be beneficial—in the way that it sheds light on the new topic by viewing it through an established lens from elsewhere—or it can be detrimental, because the way the concept applied in the first case needs to be tweaked (and thus its meaning shifted) in order to apply to the second.

An example is the terms tog and thel (þel), which refer, respectively, to the outer and inner coats of Icelandic fleeces. I hear these words used with reference to other breeds, and even other species, but I personally think they need to stay with the Icelandic wools because while they mostly apply to the others reasonably well, there are other words that work for the non-Icelandics and in my experience there seem to be related characteristics of the Icelandic wools that don't always show up in the other contexts.

So while I'm not ready to abscond with the word terroir to describe wools, I can easily trace its root back to the Latin terra, meaning earth, and note that there are longstanding connections between specific types (and breeds) of sheep and the landscapes within which they thrive, and I'll show you a little of why I am thinking about those things this week.

____

I didn't intend to buy any fleeces while I was on my trip.

Okay, now that you've stopped laughing, there are reasons. I was there to study the sheep and the wool, not to acquire fiber. And I wasn't at all sure about how I could get a bunch of stuff back to the States: there were major matters of logistics and cost and I wasn't at all confident that I would have time or resources to deal with them.

However.

I left the Scottish Smallholder and Grower Festival with two Ryeland fleeces, thinking ahead to the Explore 4 Retreat in Friday Harbor, Washington, in March, and that if the fleeces turned out to be suitable I thought the people who come to the retreat might really enjoy them. I should say that I don't announce the breeds ahead of time, because I need to know that I have appropriate fibers in hand—both quality and quantity—before I commit to covering a breed in Explore 4. As you'll see, that's something that takes time and can involve cliffhangers.

In any case, friends offered to help with the logistics of getting the fleeces back. And as time went on, it became clear that their offer was, indeed, serious, so I got the Ryelands.

As those who read the last post noted, I then bought a few fleeces on North Ronaldsay.

And by the time I reached Shetland, it seemed inappropriate not to bring back samples of the wool that is central to my current research. Especially when I reached the room of the Jamieson & Smith building in Lerwick where they put fleeces that have been pulled aside for handspinners to explore. "Samples" in this case involved whole fleeces.

I wanted a range of types, and so I picked out fleeces with varied characteristics and colors.

Jeni Reid took that photo. I really was that happy, and I'd been very reserved about what I bought in comparison with what I wanted to buy. And in comparison to what some other folks bought—! Well, I hardly bought anything at all.

Back at the self-catering unit I was sharing with friends, those friends who were egging me on in all this, we all evaluated our acquisitions (another photo by Jeni).

As it turned out, most of my fleeces were significantly wetter than I anticipated or than they'd felt in the cooler wool room. I think the warmth of the apartment may have begun the physical process involved in wool releasing water. Wool can absorb approximately 30 percent of its weight in liquid without feeling wet—one of the fiber's magical qualities, with the exact amount varying by the individual configurations of the structural components of the fibers. (That was a mouthful. Wool fibers are all "built" the same way, but the sizes and relationships of the building blocks vary, and so, therefore, do the precise behaviors.)

Of the eight Shetland fleeces that I bought, I was only comfortable sending three back home directly from Shetland (which was the most cost-effective and easiest transportation option). The others needed drying-out.

Along with the two Ryeland fleeces and the three North Ronaldsay fleeces, five of the Shetlands went back to mainland Scotland with me and spent time losing some of their moisture. The friends I was staying with had a guest room with a wire-frame mattress support, so once we set the mattress aside we could get good air circulation around the wool, and they also handily own a dehumidifier.

So of the total thirteen fleeces (! how did that happen?), eight spent time in the closed room with the water being coaxed out of them. Yes, there was a lot of water. I have weight numbers and at some point will calculate how much water. Occasional canine supervision was required.

It took a while to figure out how to ship this array to the States as economically as possible. The method finally chosen wasn't cheap, but it worked well. The three boxes arrived a few days ago—after one of our recent snowstorms.

I don't expect the customs agents to have memorized the entire bulky complicated mess of import regulations, and I am willing to bet that most haven't seen raw wool before, and that when faced with it they might be likely to err on the conservative side and reject a perfectly legal shipment. Thus each box carried a copy of the appropriate page from the US Department of Agriculture's regulations pertaining to incoming shipments of raw fibers, with the appropriate bits highlighted. (There's a PDF of that page here.)

The three boxes—about 18 kg (40 pounds) in all (part of that was books)—came through without a hitch. Except for that one ripped spot on the end of one of the boxes. Nothing was lost.

I'd continued to consider featuring Ryeland at the upcoming Explore 4 Fiber Retreat in March, but until the wool was actually here, that wasn't something I could count on or announce. (Some of the fibers I'm planning to use for that retreat are still on the sheep's backs, fortunately here in the U.S. I do have backup plans if the timing for shearing, or washing, ends up going off-schedule.)

So I was especially happy to see the two Ryeland fleeces, one dark and one white, come out of the box.

Isn't this one pretty? That's it's identifying number tied on. Kind of fun to have. Nice typography. This fleece had to go first in the line-up for washing because I envisioned it having a job to do in the near future at that workshop. (I had washed the white fleece while in Scotland. It dried while I was off in Orkney and Shetland.)

I love watching the scouring liquid (in this case, Unicorn Power Scour) do its work, removing the grease with very little intervention from me.

I did run into a slight problem. That particular Ryeland fleece, with its shades of dark and light grays and browns, washed up so beautifully that I began to think I needed to keep part of it for myself—at least enough so I could make a hat or mittens. (Friends suggested what I know, which is that these items become teaching samples that become extremely useful in helping people understand how to use different types of fleeces.) To keep some fiber, even a little bit, I'd need to find, and have shipped, yet another Ryeland fleece in time for the workshop. And this time of year is not ideal for acquiring fleece: last year's clip is gone, and this year's clip is still keeping the sheep warm.

So I wrote hopeful, inquiring e-mails and turned to washing one of the Shetlands. This was the one I'd called #4 and written down as being light gray in color. It's what Oliver Henry, the wool buyer and classer at Jamieson and Smith in Shetland, called "toppy." (I bought Shetlands with several fleece configurations, for use in a fall workshop.) And a truly beautiful gray.

So I began to set up the washing trays.

Here's the first rinse, and the darkness of the water surprised me, because I usually only see that much color when there's been obvious dirt or mud on a fleece.

Well, this is interesting. Second soaking:

Wool is full of surprises. About this time, I woke up. PEAT! 

Shetland is full of peat, and the sheep spend their time among it. It colors the streams and rivers a deep coffee color.

And now its fine, fine particles were washing off the fleece in my tub.

And the wool was growing lighter in tone.

Here's a picture I took of cut stacks of peat, which is used for fuel.

And a close-up.

Peat is a topic for consideration in its own right, forming amazingly slowly and deserving of conservation. It saturates the landscape.

As do sheep.

As it turns out, both traveled home with me, the peat so fine that it simply appeared to color the fiber, and because of its fineness to color the fleece gray rather than peat-brown, and not to be obvious at all. What I ended up with was a beautiful, gleaming white fleece.

It's common for spinners to buy what they think is a lovely light brown fleece at a festival and to be disappointed, when they get it home and wash it, to discover that it's actually light gray. This always seems sad to me, not because it wasn't what they expected but because it usually is a gorgeous gray, suddenly not appreciated for being itself.

In this case, yes, I did think I had a lovely gray and I got a white.

In a way, this single fleece reminds me of two of the moods I enjoyed in Shetland: the muted. . . .

. . . and the sparkling.

If that isn't a fine thing, I don't know what is.

Terroir at its most basic and pragmatic, and at its most fleeting and suggestive.

_

Left: unwashed. Right: clean and ready to go.

___

P.S. on the additional Ryeland fleece: Good news to come in another post. It's already here. I'll wash it soon.

Orkney: Getting to and from North Ronaldsay

North Ronaldsay is the farthest north island Orkney, a group of islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. It's where "those seaweed-eating sheep" live. A few other types of sheep eat seaweed, but this is the breed that's best known for it. In a later post I'll include lots of photos of sheep, but first it's necessary to get to (and in my case back from) the island.

The ways to do this are by air or by sea. We went by air. For this trip, I enjoyed the excellent company and guidance and grace of Liz Lovick. If you don't know her work, you should. If you don't know her in person, you would very much like to.

Liz lives on another Orkney island, Flotta, so we met up in Kirkwall, on Orkney's main island. The airport there serves, among other places, North Ronaldsay. This is the land side of the Kirkwall airport.

Here, on the other side, is the plane we took:

Per-person baggage allowance is 15kg (about 33 pounds). Bulk is not as much of an issue as weight, so transporting wool on the return isn't a huge problem, but the whole matter of having clothes, computer, and other basics in a rucksack while leaving enough weight allowance for the possible return of a few more supplies than went outbound requires some planning.

The plane's capacity is two in the pilots' seats plus six passengers, two by two. Boarding is orchestrated at travel time, with passengers assigned to seats in order to balance the load. The young woman demonstrating the life jacket was in training to become one of the new regular pilots on this run. She flew us into North Ronaldsay, accompanied by the pilot next to her who had a lot of experience in the area.

I like small planes where I can see that the pilot's having a good time flying. Because North Ronaldsay isn't very big, I ended up sitting next to shepherd June Morris, with whom I was scheduled to visit on the island during my time there. She'd taken one of her cats to the vet and had to leave it there over night. Getting the cat back to North Ronaldsay was an interesting adventure that will be recounted in a future post. Liz, who was sitting behind me, took this photo. 

The views along our route kept me busy watching.

When we got to North Ronaldsay, the wind was blowing pretty fiercely. So much so that although there's now hard-surface runway, our pilot, Rebecca, set us down on a grass runway. She also aimed her approach to the left of where she wanted the plane to land, and the wind tweaked the alignment during our final descent so we came in perfectly.

We did taxi in on hard-surface runway.

The North Ronaldsay airport.

Its luggage handling system is more reliable than the one at Denver International Airport.

I think it's a bit windier more often on North Ronaldsay, even though Denver does get wind from the plains and off the mountains. (Thanks again to Liz for the next photo.)

I went to North Ronaldsay to see sheep, and there will be a lot of photos of them in another post, but there needs to be at least one in this installment: eating seaweed.

The reason we need a sheep here is because it's necessary to make the connection to stuffing wool into sacks. It's good to encounter friends who understand this kind of work and can help stomp a lot of fiber (and, as it turns out, a fair amount of moisture) into a bag.

Or several.

On the cart as we got ready to leave, note the proportions of white puffy bags to other luggage. No, those aren't all my fleeces. Several of us gathered wool. (Thanks to Liz for those photos.)

We sat where we were directed to.

This time our pilot was one of the ones who are about to be required to retire because there are strict age limits. Only a handful of pilots handle these routes. They know the weather and the geography exquisitely well. On this trip, we were told we'd be flying in a particular way (basically, low) in order to make the air time as short as possible. The total flight time from North Ronaldsay to Kirkwall (or vice versa) is less than half an hour. The schedules say 18 minutes, but conditions determine whether it's a bit more than that. Or whether the pilot has to turn around and go back to Kirkwall because it's too windy or socked in or otherwise unfavorable to land on North Ronaldsay. (Our travels were just fine. A couple of days later several flights turned back.)

I took a lot of photos on the return flight.

It was the end of the day, and the light shone low on the water.

Too soon, we approached Kirkwall again. 

How many times do you get to see this when you're flying on a commercial flight as a passenger?

And in we went.

Welcome (back) to Kirkwall airport (air side).

Thanks so much, Liz! I had an amazing time. 

(Blog note: MANY more details, and sheep, and wool, to come.)

Orkney - Kirbuster Farm Museum

Several sites in Orkney allow a visitor to see the progression of human habitation. The earliest is Skara Brae. After that, we went to Kirbuster Farm Museum, a massive leap forward in time but one in which the types of structures and living spaces implemented at Skara Brae were still evident.

Kirbuster originated in the 16th century. Where Skara Brae is 5000 years old, Kirbuster came into being about 400 years ago as a croft (smallholding, or farm) house. While typical of its time in some respects, it was larger and more diverse and the domicile connected with more land than most structures of its era. It was also expanded in the 18th century and was lived in until 1961, so many portions reflect inhabitation from the 19th and 20th centuries.

Here's a glimpse of some of what's there. . . .

One interesting thing about the two farm museums I visited in Mainland Orkney is that they are so approachable. Some of the items are historic and some are replicas, but all can be moved among and "felt" in place, as if the spaces were still in use, perhaps by you who are moving within them, imagining what it would be like to carry out the activities of daily life inside these walls and and among these fields.

The ancestral stonework skills endured—prompted, no doubt, by the ready availability of stone. This is an outbuilding near the entrance: I think it was a drying house or type of kiln, but am open to correction. Having recently been at Skara Brae, I was more focused on its construction than its function.

Here's the inside of the house, looking back toward where we entered, from a vantage point near the hallway to the later addition. That great block of stone is the hearth. The pole hanging down is attached to boards in the opening of the roof that lets the smoke out. More about that in a moment.

Here's the hearth and its burning peat fire, with strings of fish drying in the heat. Yes, real fire and real peat. While it was smoky, it was nowhere near as bad as you'd think (for an open fire burning without fireplace or chimney) because of the ingenious draft system.

The hole in the roof (proto-chimney) is amazingly effective—more so than the smoke-removal options in many later houses of this area and elsewhere. The boards attached to the pole can be adjusted (by angle and position) in response to the direction of the wind to make the draft most effective. I have some photos of the opening in the roof, although they're not terrific.

This is looking up into the hole. The board extension controlled by the pole is in place on the upper edge of the hole that the photo is looking toward. It could be shifted to the other sides and slotted into place.

The hole isn't just a hole. It's pretty carefully and ingeniously devised and built. Here's another view of the portions that are in the dark in the photo above.

The point is: this place is rustic, but people knew what they were doing when they put it together. It was not in the least haphazard, and when the winds blew and the rain fell, the thick walls and adjustable heating system provided relatively spacious and functional shelter.

Textile crafts were in evidence, if not actively progressing (but wait for the end of the post to see a much better representation of the fiber heritage).

A wheel that needed cleaning, a flyer, driveband, oil, adjustment. . . .

Old wheels like this always make me wonder if they're salvageable.

It was very "gray" in the fiber-processing realm, but at least the elements were present. The drying fish over the fire were pretty dusty, too.

The neuk (nook) bed is strongly reminiscent of similar stone enclosures at Skara Brae.

My next photo's a little fuzzy, but the style continued into the new wing and its box beds. The materials from which those beds were constructed were different and the styles of bedding changed. But the type of resting place would have felt familiar.

The new part of the house has a very different feel, but there is continuity. Shawls hang on a peg rail:

Inscribed names record a lot of family history—the information on these pages reflects events of the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, with an emphasis on the late part of the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth:

Like Skara Brae, this was a home.

At the back end of the property is a long building with a lot of tools. I'll show just a few. Two wagons, of similar design but from different eras:

And a tool for laying rope:

 Out back of the extension is a walled garden area with an orchard and flowers.

It's even more remarkable than it looks in this photo, given the general Orkney landscape—this taken nearby:

And this of the croft context:

And that brings us to the most interesting fiber detail of the Kirbuster visit:

There were two North Ronaldsay sheep in an adjacent pasture. I have to show you both.

At both Kirbuster and the following museum (next post), the curator/attendants offered fascinating insights into the buildings and objects in their care. They're obviously and justifiably proud of these resources where history can be touched and felt and experienced in continuity with the present day.

Rare Breeds Survival Trust's 2011 Watchlist for sheep

The Rare Breeds Survival Trust, which monitors the status of livestock breeds in the British Isles, has published its 2011 Watchlist of breeds that need attention to stay, as they say, off the slippery slope to extinction. From the whole list (a PDF), I'm focusing here on the sheep:

Categories are based on numbers of breeding females.

CRITICAL (category 1)

• Boreray

ENDANGERED (category 2)

• Leicester Longwool
• North Ronaldsay

VULNERABLE (category 3)

• Castlemilk Moorit
• Devon & Cornwall Longwool
• Hill Radnor
• Teeswater
• Whitefaced Woodland

AT RISK (category 4)

• Balwen
• Cotswold
• Lincoln Longwool
• Manx Loaghtan
• Norfolk Horn
• Oxford Down
• Portland
• Soay
• Wensleydale
• Whiteface Dartmoor

MINORITY (category 5)

• Dorset Down
• Dorset Horn
• Greyface Dartmoor
• Shropshire

A few random notes:

* The Norfolk Horn is not the original breed, but has been bred back up from near-extinction (just a few sheep), using in part one of the more modern breeds that had previously been developed from a Norfolk Horn foundation, the Suffolk. Called the New Norfolk Horn for a while, the "New" part of the name has now been dropped, even though the successors may only carry part of the genetic heritage of the original breed.

* The Isle of Man cares so much about its traditional Manx Loaghtan sheep that during the foot-and-mouth epidemic of 2001 the parliament, known as the Tynwald, cancelled one of the island's highest-earning tourist events (a massive and famous motorcycle race) in order to reduce the possibility that the sheep would be exposed to the illness.

* The Dorset Down and Dorset Horn are not the same as what is often just called the Dorset (also known as the Polled Dorset, which, oddly, originated in two different locations from two different breeding efforts). (The Dorset Down is one of the six basic Down breeds. The Dorset Horn and the Polled Dorset, while they have Down-like wool, are not on that short list.)

* The Southdown is not on the RBST list, but is on the similar list prepared by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (ALBC). The two organizations have different criteria for evaluating populations.

The information released with the new edition of the watchlist notes that some livestock breeds have recently become more vulnerable because of world economic conditions. People who could previously have kept a small flock have had to sell their animals.

I like the format of the new list. It also notes that, over time, the following sheep breeds have progressed from category 1 (critical) to category 5 (minority) and currently have large enough populations to have been discharged from the equivalent of the breed ICU (intensive care unit), at least for now:

• Black Welsh Mountain
• Hebridean
• Jacob
• Kerry Hill
• Lleyn
• Llanwenog
• Ryeland
• Shetland
• Southdown
• South Wales Mountain
• Wiltshire Horn (a hair sheep)

A separate section of the RBST site tracks breeds of sheep that are vulnerable because their populations are concentrated in very limited geographic areas. The categories are based on how small an area contains 75 percent of the breed's population. Breeds at risk for this reason include:

CRITICAL (category 1)

• Exmoor Horn 
• Whiteface Dartmoor

ENDANGERED (category 2)

• Rough Fell

VULNERABLE (category 3)

• Herdwick

AT RISK (category 4)

• Devon Closewool

MINORITY (category 5)

• Devon & Cornwall Longwool

You'll note that the Whiteface Dartmoor and the Devon & Cornwall Longwool face the double whammy of limited overall numbers and high geographic concentration.

Changes among the sheep from the previous list

I need to keep and archive copies of the official lists, marked by the year (the RBST PDF for this year is clearly labeled, but I think that's new). I do have extensive notes, and copies of web pages, and (somewhere) dog-eared copies of pages pulled from old copies of RBST and ALBC publications.

Breeds don't tend to move quickly up or down on either the ALBC or RBST lists: conservation is a slow process. For The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook, co-author Carol Ekarius (the livestock person, to my fiber side of the equation) wisely suggested that we provide a label for "conservation breeds" instead of listing specific categories for the individual breeds. That overall status isn't going to change quickly, whereas the breeds' specific locations within the population assessments do move over broad swaths of time.

Handfuls of individuals can make a major difference in a breed's prospects—in either direction. Any shift in status, either up or down, is worth remarking on.

According to my notes, there were two shifts among the sheep from 2010 to 2011.

• Cotswold moved to category 4 (at risk) from category 5 (minority)
• Whitefaced Woodland moved to category 3 (vulnerable) from category 4 (at risk)

These breeds have both moved in the more vulnerable direction, toward lower populations. They are breeds with very deep histories, each located with a specific landscape.

Cotswold

Cotswold, one of the luster longwools, comes from the Cotswold Hills, on the western and southern edge of central England (how's that for a confusing description? check the map for the area I'm talking about). The breed once was a major support of the British economy.

It is a lovely handspinning wool, excellent for knitting and crocheting and exquisite for weaving. The breed contains genetics for a range of shiny fleece colors from black through a variety of grays to glistening whites.

Whitefaced Woodland

Whitefaced Woodland, from sheep with durable constitutions that originated in the southern part of the Pennine mountain range, produces fiber that is quite variable from animal to animal, with some coarser and some relatively finer (although none gets past "medium" in feel). The wool, like their faces, is white.

I knitted the swatch with Aran-weight Whitefaced Woodland yarn from Garthenor (spun at Sue Blacker's mill). The pattern is #107 from Knitting Patterns Book 250 by Hitomi Shida.

_____

P.S.

Sheepwatching notes: Even though its breed is not labeled, and I am (as noted above) a fiber rather than a livestock person, and I'm open to information that might correct my notes, if I had to say what breed is in the photo at the top of the RBST's list I'd sure pick Oxford.

The sheep in the photo is undoubtedly one of the six core Down breeds, because of its colored face and white wool—well, and the general shape of the face. Three of the six core Down breeds are on the current Watchlist (Dorset Down, Oxford Down, Shropshire; a fourth, Southdown, is on the ALBC rare breeds list; Hampshire Down and Suffolk are not on either list). There are other breeds that have colored faces and white wool, but the Down breeds have a kind of characteristic "puffy" look (that's a highly scientific descriptor that I just made up).

It isn't a Dorset Down, because they have lighter colored (generally brownish) faces. (It's not a Dorset Horn, because they have white faces and they also have distinctive horns on both rams and ewes!)

Shropshire is another possibility, and Shropshires' faces are darker than those of Dorset Downs, but they have a somewhat differently shaped profile and growth pattern of wool on the face.

Although not all Oxfords have as much wool on their faces as the sheep in the picture, many do (and some have even more). Plus the face shape is Oxford-y, if I dare say such a thing. Oxfords are sturdy sheep, and they are exceptionally large. Size isn't something we can gauge from that head shot, but we can get hints of posture. And that sheep looks like it's standing in an Oxford pose: sort of upright and staunch. I vote for Oxford.

Teaching classes about rare-breed wools

Start by saying that I love teaching people about the different types of wools, both for people who spin and for people who start their fiber pursuits with yarn.

Within the past six months I've gotten requests both to record the DVD set about spinning rare-breed wools that Interweave recently released and to teach some classes for spinners about rare wools, at the Conference of Northern California Handweavers (CNCH) in May and at the Spin-Off Autumn Retreat (SOAR) in October. These will be survey classes, in which we'll all get our hands on a variety of different types of rare wools.

By definition, these wools are rare. For an individual person looking for wool to spin, finding these fibers is do-able. Yes, you can locate them! Especially if you don't have a deadline. But finding enough to supply a group of people (who are convening at a particular time) is a whole different quest.

Presenting these classes would not be even remotely possible without the help of Beth Smith, at The Spinning Loft, and Jennifer Heverly, at Spirit Trail Fiberworks. They're helping me gather fibers. Because, indeed, we need to obtain (and wash, and package) enough fiber of enough different breeds to supply all the participants in the workshops.

Overall (this is scary), in order to teach the CNCH workshop in May, plus SOAR's three-day and one-day workshops as well as four retreat sessions, we need to come up with 996 spinnable portions of wool representing at least 15 rare breeds of sheep.

There are no typos in that summary.

The workshops and classes have varying numbers of participants, and will include different numbers of types of wool, depending on how much time we have available for our explorations. I want the wool ready to go and easy to divide fairly, so we spend as little time as possible distributing materials and as much time as possible playing with them. Thus the massive prep work.

• CNCH: Maximum 15 participants x minimum 12 breeds (during 12 class hours) = 180 packets.
• SOAR three-day workshop: Maximum 16 participants x minimum 15 breeds (during 18 class hours) = 240 packets.
• SOAR one-day workshop: Maximum 18 participants x minimum 8 breeds (during 5.5 class hours) = 144 packets.
• SOAR retreat sessions: Maximum 18 participants x minimum 6 breeds (smaller quantities per breed than in workshops) x 4 sessions (of 3 class hours each) = 432 portions.
• That does add up to 996 portions of wool. I've recalculated three times because I had a hard time believing it.

What we'll accomplish during each class will be modified to fit the time available. Of course, I also want to make sure that we have diverse types of fibers, so each survey really is a survey and people come away with a broad enough perspective to feel comfortable when they encounter the breeds we haven't covered, as well as those we have.

We started this whole process on December 22, as soon as the need became apparent. We do have a few extra months to obtain and prepare the SOAR supplies. For CNCH, we need to jump-start the season. As shearing begins, we are collecting fleeces (that we've already put in requests for) as they come off the sheep.

Above: Samples of North Ronaldsay wool.

It's pretty exciting.

It also requires some detailed spreadsheet work, and a lot of e-mails back and forth. As of a few minutes ago, we've almost got the CNCH requirements covered. We need to fill in one more breed. We have lots of possibilities, but no wool-in-hand (or even in transit yet).

The gist? Although I'm likely to be teaching workshops now and then (and here and there) on breed-specific wools, and I will always include rare breeds in a class line-up, I'm not at all sure how often we're going to be able to pull off events that include only rare-breed wools.

Huge thanks to Beth and Jennifer for making these focused workshops possible.

While I'll give an overview of the world of wool at the start of each workshop or class, I'll give provide more detail on the breeds we'll actually be experiencing firsthand. Before I can get ready to do that, I need to know what they are! Now that we're (pretty) certain what eleven of the twelve CNCH breeds will be, I can start preparing my slides.

Happy spring! (Happy shearing season!)

Possible (probable) blog tour

It looks like we're going to be doing a blog tour for the release of The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook. The publisher, Storey, will be coordinating it, and it will probably start June 1. If you have a blog or podcast and would like to participate, let me know and I'll pass your information along to the folks who will be managing the schedule.

What I'm spinning

It's not a sample. It is a rare breed: Gulf Coast Native roving, sourced, processed, and hand-dyed by Jennifer Heverly, at the previously mentioned Spirit Trail Fiberworks.

 

Photo shoot post 4: staging

It's true: I have been doing a few things at the photo shoots other than taking snapshots of other people while they work. In fact, I've been on my feet and moving around at least 90 percent of the time; comfortable shoes have been my most important wardrobe item. The other 10 percent of the time I can sit next to my computer on a wooden stool and give my feet a break.

My job, which I think of as staging the materials for the photos, is to:

• select the fibers, yarns, and other bits that will be in each picture,
• move them smoothly to the area where the shot(s) will be taken,
• be sure that what shows in the finished image is what needs to be there (although I'm only taking time to check this when art director Mary Velgos and photographer John Polak have questions—during the first day of our work together, we established general principles that solve many issues without my additional photo-specific input),
• retrieve the fibers after they have been photographed,
• restore the items to their folders and file boxes, and
• maintain a tracking system that double-checks that we aren't missing anything.

In between, I have been helping Mary figure out if we need to expand the number of pages allocated for this or that breed (or whether we can, perhaps, condense one section or another, thus gaining pages to be used elsewhere). This sometimes involves judgment calls about placement of information, and sometimes requires me to write or rewrite material.

In one case, Carol Ekarius and I had written a one-paragraph introduction to a section. Mary's layout calls for a spread for each section-opener (lots of photos on the left, text on the right). That paragraph looked lonely and the page looked bare. Something had to be done about it. Fortunately, we discovered the situation on Wednesday. I spent that day and the next mulling what could be added that would not just be filler but would increase the value of the book, and doing a bit of research through my files to come up with supporting information. On Friday, I wrote new text, using my computer. Then I loaded the additional material on a USB drive, walked over to Mary's layout computer, inserted the text into InDesign on the page in question . . . and then got to trim it by about half, so it would fit!

In many cases, I'm cutting a few lines so we can get the photos to work smoothly and beautifully in the layout. Fortunately, even after several rounds of editing there are almost always surplus words that can be eliminated without decreasing the amount of information. Doing this work within the actual book production file means I can cut exactly the right number of words in exactly the right places to make the copyfitting adjustments perfect, instead of having to guess from across the country which changes might have the desired results. Familiarity with both book layout and InDesign are serving me well in these tasks.

But back to the responsibilities that are taking most of my time during the shoot. . . .

My primary working area is a 4 x 8-foot (1.2m x 2.4m) table (supported on sawhorses) roughly 6 feet (2m) from where the photos are being taken. Here's how I set it up:

Each of those manila pockets is a breed or type of fiber. The pockets along the back of the table are sorted into groups of "just finished" and "to be shot soon." (There are many file boxes elsewhere in the studio that contain previous and future days' work.) The pockets lying flat on the table are in the immediate line-up to be photographed. The plastic bags (on top of their respective pockets) contain extra fibers. For example, whenever I had enough fiber available I packed extra locks of wool so that if our first choice gets messed up we have a backup. They are also where the fibers to be photographed come from, and where they go back to. There is a set of plastic bags for each individual type of fiber.

This detail from the image above shows a sequence of fibers that will be photographed together, laid out on a scrap of mat board so they can be carried undisturbed over to the shooting area:

Those samples happen to be a bunch of gorgeous Lincolns grown and contributed by Christiane Payson at North Valley Farm (Oregon) or gathered and contributed by Beth Smith at The Spinning Loft (Michigan).

I'll talk about the cards in front (with the green dots) in a moment.

Here's part of another set of samples ready to go into a photo set-up—these are some of the North Ronaldsays, which were collected and shared by Jennifer Heverly of Spirit Trail Fiberworks (Virginia) or grown by June Morris (North Ronaldsay, Scotland) and sent to us by way of June Hall (Cumbria, England):

The small white tags are identifiers that travel to the photo table and back with the fibers. In this case, there are manila skein tags with two of the sets because their white tags were used for another purpose (to identify the last-minute knitted and woven swatches) and went AWOL in the process. No matter how many labels I have printed for each type of fiber, we often run out. . . . Once the completed photo has been shot, the white tags are set on top of the fibers and a reference image is made, to facilitate the writing of captions later.

My big table is near another table with an iron, which is plugged in and constantly hot, that I use to give shots of steam to skeinlets (to restore their "airiness" after having been packed tightly into folders and boxes) and, less often, to locks of wool that have been bent while they were being transported. I also have been steaming some of the background fabrics for Mary while she's setting up a shot (more on the set-up in the next, and final, installment in this series). The "ironing board" is a terrycloth towel on the metal surface of the other table.

Here's my primary table when a set of fibers has moved over to Mary's and John's area:

The white cards with the green dots tell me what fibers are out working at the moment. The snapshot below shows one of the images about ready to be photographed, with its backgrounds in place. Outside the edges of the image area, you can see some of the the tiny cards that were below the skeins and locks when I set them out and that will be laid on top of the locks for the extra picture that gives us a detailed record of which fiber was which. One card is on the wood just above a set of locks. Another is farther away, on the very edge of the scrap foam core that was used to transport this group of samples. Based on positioning of fibers and the cards we can see, the third card for this group is probably out of sight on the left.

Now more about those cards with the green dots. I made a record card for every fiber I processed. The basic materials consist of old business cards (their nice blank back sides coming into play) and one of the large-size fiber labels. Originally, these cards accompanied the fibers through the washing process and identified the drying fibers. Now they've got a new job.

The boxes below contain the cards for the wools: those yet to be shot are on the left, and those for which we have completed the pictures are on the right (with the date of the image added in the upper right corner).

Based on the number of cards in each box, I'd guess that I took that picture on about the fourth day of the sheep-fiber photo shoot. A green dot means that I spun a sample skein of the fiber (most of the cards have green dots). A red dot means that for some reason the fiber I received was not of good enough quality to spin. Sometimes I had to spin red-dot fibers because we couldn't get any better fiber (in which case a green dot was added). A yellow dot means that the fiber was not spinnable for some reason not related to quality. Often a yellow-dot sample consists of a collection of small locks to show color variety.

A couple of fiber packets got special, handwritten labels:

I'm allergic to something that came along with that particular wool. It may have been a type of grass or a chemical the sheep was treated with. In this case, once the fiber was clean I didn't have any problems with it. However, we're photographing locks of wool straight from the sheep, so that baggie is marked. I left the fiber in the bag until just before it was photographed and put it back in immediately after the picture was done. A few fibers ended up marked this way because they'd been stored in mothballs.

Mostly we don't have pictures of me working, because I was taking pictures of other people working. However, John took my camera and caught me spinning a last-minute sample of extra-wonderful Shetland that I got from Oliver Henry, of Jamieson and Smith, when I was at UK Knit Camp in Stirling, Scotland. (I don't usually spin with my hands that far overhead so my neck tips back; I was trying to do something specific with a tiny bit of fiber and the not-quite-perfect tool.)

The spindle I had with me was too heavy, but I couldn't resist doing the best I could with the tools at hand to get that particular wool into the book.

For reasons of packing space (and weight) and financial constraints, I only brought a few tangible treasures back from my trip to Scotland and England. One of those items was my mascot for the first seven days of shooting:

It's a needle-felted Herdwick sheep made by by Ellie Rowell of the cooperative Wool Clip gallery in Cumbria. Yes, the body is Herdwick wool. I'm very fond of this little creature and when the days of photography got long during the first shoot, it made me smile. It's since taken up residence next to my main computer in my home office, where it also makes me smile.

Wool: A bit more on North Ronaldsay

Linda thanked me in the comments for offering a photo of a North Ronaldsay lock. I'd only shown one lock, and that's not the whole story by a long shot, so I'll supplement here. I have a selection of five different samples (thanks to Jennifer Heverly at Spirit Trail Fiberworks . . . one of my allies in this Massive Project I'm working on). Why and how they are different makes a fascinating story for another time.

Interesting, isn't it?

More or less double-coated, and dramatically so. The undercoats on the double-coated fleeces (the ones with the long, coarse guard hairs, second and fourth from either left or right) are similar to the fine fibers of the single-coated fleeces (first, third, and fifth, also from either direction).

So if you have been interested in North Ronaldsay and haven't been able to get your mind around the wool, this is why. The story is in the history of the breed.

I have another post to prep, on the Suffolk and the not-Suffolk discussion that started in March. So off to it. . . . Oh, and I have work to do today, too. I'm doing a week-long artist's residency through Colorado Art Ranch and need to make as much progress as possible during this time when I can actually concentrate.

Bummer about the Soay sample; North Ronaldsay's truly fascinating

Soay: sample not looking so hot

Here's what you don't want in a fleece, especially from a rare breed: sunburned tips that snap off. Sometimes sunbleached tips on a fleece are just fine—the color has lightened or gone brown without weakening the fiber very much. Sometimes the damage goes too far. Especially bad when it's a hard fiber to get, like Soay, a breed that's been around since the Stone Age (that's before the Bronze Age and the Iron Age) and doesn't fit the industrialized agricultural model in any way. It's far from impossible to get Soay, but when you do get it and it falls apart . . . that's a problem.

The top lock is the original form. The bottom two locks show what happens when I pull—not even very hard—on those crispy, brown tips (they feel like pencil shavings).

Also, at the bases of most of the locks is a bunch of scurf, or skin flakes, that can be removed from a fleece but the fiber needs to be able to withstand extra handling, which this wool won't. If just the tips were damaged, I could snip them off. But the rest of the staple feels crispy (therefore fragile) as well. Hmmm. What to do? I don't know yet.
___

North Ronaldsay

North Ronaldsay's another very old breed. Most writings say Iron Age, but recent DNA testing says it goes back farther.

Working with this sample was slightly challenging, too, because the breed's fleece has a tendency to form matts at the bases of the locks (an incomplete transition from naturally shedding to needs-shearing types of sheep) and the tips of the locks were stuck together.

However, the tips didn't break off and I was able to flick both ends of each lock on a fine-toothed hand carder and separate the fibers, which I then spun on a hand spindle. It made quite a blissful yarn--not much of it, because I have to move on, but I could feel the North Ronaldsay's close relationship to Shetlands as I spun. (Some North Ronaldsay fleeces feel closer to other relatives.)

The wee two-ply sample skein is drying (in this photo, it was still singles).

A clean, unprepared lock is on the bottom and one of the prepared locks is on the top. It's a Magpie spindle.

One little surprise on this sample was that when I checked it into the tracking system I wrote "light gray." Obviously, it's pretty darn white. It's amazing how the dirt in a fleece can shift the perceived color of unwashed wool. Spinners find this most disappointing when they think they've found a light brown fleece and it turns out to be cream or white.

Part of what I learned today is why the matting forms at the bases of the locks within this breed—which gave me more patience in dealing with it. I also wrote up most of the material on North Ronaldsays, with all sorts of additional information that I, at least, find really cool.

One breed a day? Oh, I hope not! This project will take forever, and I have until the end of summer.
___

Hat from the booth of El Centro de Textiles Tradicionales de Cusco at Maryland Sheep & Wool

I promised a more accurate photo:

Isn't it lovely?

And as a bonus here's a better photo of the breed-specific skeins I bought at Maryland:

That helps me keep my perspective about things like disintegrating Soay wool.