Manx L.

Egads! Where did the month go?!

The long promised post about another of our favorite breeds - the Manx Loaghtan.

Another primitive breed, often with four horns (though two horns are not uncommon, six horned animals are), they are a breed that is worth getting to know better. The fleece has a wonderful "squooshy" quality to it (dense, but fluffy). The fleece is often a wonderful, warm brown (often described as chocolate), with tips that bleach out to a cream.

Some of the things I find fascinating about the Manx breed is that they are a hardy breed, and while the are known for being from the Isle of Man, it wasn't until recently that they were a source of pride for the Isle. They were almost extinct until the middle of the 20th century. One gentleman, George Steriopulos, saw some being sold at a market for "next to nothing". Steriopulos realized that the Manx were a primitive breed that didn't " conform to modern marketing standards."

Manx is best spun with a short draw/draft. It's a lovely fiber, but might be frustrating for a beginner. However, it's well worth seeking out once you're comfortable with a shorter fiber.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/isleofman/hi/people_and_places/nature/newsid_8333000/8333801.stm

Perendale with lily of the valley

So, it's that time of year when everything is coming up. I've been wanting to dye with lily of the valley for a while, ever since I had read about it and how you can get a green from it.

Doing research, many of the books/websites and more suggested a ratio of 2:1 of plant material to wool. I would definitely up it to 3:1 or even 4:1.

I started with:

5.4 ounces of lily of the valley (leaves and flower buds)

2.6 ounces of Perendale fleece (washed) mordanting in .5T alum and .5t CoT.

Leaves were harvested at night and put into a 6 ounce crock pot. Wool was soaked and entered into the dye bath several hours later. (It took a long time to extract any sort of dye color.)

Added about two more ounces of leaves, and some color could eventually be seen, left the leaves in, and let it soak on low for a while, and then turned off and let cool.

After several days of sitting in the crock pot, I reheated the dye bath with the wool in it. It seems to have given a pale, apple green. Left some leaves in there, added about 11 ounces of new leaves and turned on high to try to extract more color. Have 4.1 ounces of wool mordanting in  alum/CoT. Not sure if all of it will go to the lily of the valley bath, but most will.

It is definitely a pale, pale color, more like a tint. Worth trying again, and experimenting with.

One of the books talked about adding Glauber's salts and Tartaric acid to the dye bath. That's something to look into for next time. 

Logwood

I had an ounce of logwood powder sitting around for some time, and decided it was high time to do something with it. Friday night (1/1/2016), I mixed the logwood powder with some water, and then decided that more water would be better. I moved it to a larger mason jar, and added just boiling water, some vinegar, and it's been sitting ever since. Tonight, I hope to remember to start mordanting some wool and see how the logwood dyes up.

I've been informed by Ian the Green (or Grene)'s wife that I will look like I have blood on my hands. I'm rather excited about that. For some reason, dyEing is more fun when it's messy and leaves your hands different colors than they started.

Which reminds me that I need to move the blocks of ice that are the walnut extracts I have outside so they can thaw and I can use them. If I do it tomorrow, I might have enough to bring to a demo on Wednesday.

Soay

I just bagged Soay. The last fleeces I put through the fermented suint method, and finally washed it the other week, and it's been drying for about a week.

The fleece is interesting, containing both gorgeous, soft fleece (think undercoat) and some really coarse bits. It's say there's under/over coat, but the coarse bits seem more like from the shanks.

It would seem that Soay is one of those sheep breeds that is a living example of what was. According to sheep101.info - "The Soay has been called the only living example of the small, primitive sheep which inhabited the British Isles before the coming of the Norsemen and Romans."

Soay is a primitive breed named for an island off the west coast of Scotland. The island of Soay  is located in the St. Kilda Archipelago, and is believed to have been settled during the Bronze Age. The sheep were put on their own island (named by the Norse, and means "sheep", so the island is "sheep" and the breed is "sheep"), while early man lived on other islands in the archipelago. The Soay have survived without any interference from humans, with the exception of yearly trips to collect wool (which is shed, not shorn.) In 1932, some of the sheep were moved to St. Kilda, establishing another feral population. (The people of the island had been evacuated previous to then.) Small numbers are located on the main land of the United Kingdom, as well as in Canada and the United States. The Soay in the United States were crossed with other hair sheep, and are called "American Soay" to differentiate them from the "British Soay" which has a "purer" lineage.

The Rare Breed Survival Trust (a charity aimed at preserving native breeds in the UK from extinction), lists the Soay as "At Risk", meaning there are between 900-1500 registered breeding ewes.


http://www.hobbyfarms.com/livestock-and-pets/soay-sheep.aspx
https://www.rbst.org.uk/sheep-information
http://soaysheep.com/about-soay-sheep.shtml
http://soaysheep.org/soay.html