Script for

Episode 155:

Get to Know the Down Breeds

Hey there Sheepspotters, welcome to episode 44 of the Sheepspot podcast. I'm Sasha from sheepspot.com where we offer diverse hand dyed wools and the information and support you need to make those wools into beautiful yarns. 

I am so excited because in today's episode we are going to talk about the down breeds and they are my favorite. So the down breeds are six breeds of sheep that originated in the south of England in an area known as the Downs and these breeds are the South Down which is the oldest of the group and the progenitor of the others, the Suffolk, the Dorset Down, the Hampshire, the Oxford, and the Shropshire. All of these sheep are pulled, that is without horns. All have mostly white wool with darker faces and legs, although not much darker in the case of the South Down. 

And they all have long tails. Some breeds in this group have been massively successful commercially as meat sheep. Suffolk and Hampshire, I'm looking at you. Suffolk are in fact the second most numerous breed of sheep in the world after the Merino. But some of these breeds are quite rare, like the Dorset Down and the Shropshire. And all of the sheep in this group of the six classic Down breeds grow similar wool. So what makes a Down wool a Down wool? 

Well, they tend to have quite blocky rectangular locks, relatively short staples. So in some breeds and in some fleeces that you'll see, they may be as short as like an inch and a half or two inches. They go up to about four inches. And they all have a very particular crimp to them. So they all have a fine, which means that the crimp, how to describe this, they're all very crimpy. So each fiber has a lot of little twists and turns and bends in it. 

But the crimp is quite disorganized and unpredictable. So it's not, if you think about a fine wool crimp where the crimp is sort of very evenly spaced out, and it's all, sort of going in the same direction, back and forth in those little V's that you see in a fine wool crimp. In a downbreed crimp, there's really no rhyme or reason to them. And the last characteristic of the downbreeds is that at least the six breeds that I've talked about, which are sometimes known as the true downbreeds or the classic downbreeds, they are quite resistant to felting. 

I consulted the ply magazine issue on the downs and in it someone, I'm just going to flip through and see if I can find it, did a wonderful sort of test of felting. It was actually Allison. So she spun and knit up swatches from a bunch of different down breeds and then tried to felt them and to see whether she could and she discovered that in fact she could not. 

So these are sort of the natural superwash wools, they don't need to have anything done to them but they do resist felting which is pretty cool if you think about it. So there are also a bunch of other breeds which are not in this group of the six classic down breeds but which grow similar kinds of fleece and these are usually referred to as down type or down like wools. 

And what breeds are considered down like depends on whom you ask. Nola and Jane Fornier in their book In Sheep's Clothing which was kind of an early compendium of information about different sheep breeds in their wool, they count Shetland as a really beautiful Shetland fleece to send it out to the fleece club this month and let me just say that Shetlands are not anything like down wools so Shetland is not down wool or down like or down type or any of those things. 

As far as I can tell there is a fairly wide consensus on the following breeds as so-called down type. The Cheviot, the Clun Forest, the Dorset Horn, and the Pole Dorset, they're closely related to each other, but they're a different breed. They're not related to the Dorset down, so they're quite different, but still a down-like wall. The Gulf Coast native, which is a wonderful rare wall, which you should scoop up if you ever get a chance. 

Montedale, Ryland, oh my god, I love white-faced woodland in this category. White-faced woodland is a rare breed, and there's apparently quite a variety in the kinds of fleeces they grow. I am thinking in particular of the white-faced woodland that I sell in the shop and that I get from one of my wholesalers, and that wall is really quite down-like in terms of its cramp. 

I haven't tested it for felting, so please test. But it's wonderful that this wool is becoming more widely available because it's a really, really great wool. So I said at the top of this that many of the classic downs are considered rare. Some of the down-like breeds are as well. So let me just give you a quick rundown on those. So the Clun Forest, which used to be on the Rare Breeds Survival Trust list in Britain, but has been taken off that list. 

So they are recovering somewhat in the UK. They're still listed as threatened by the Livestock Conservancy in the US. And that's a really great wool. So if you can find some, snatch that up too. Dorset Down, they are listed as a minority breed on the Rare Breed Survival Trust list. 

They're not on the Livestock Conservancy list because as far as I can tell, there are none in North America. Gulf Coast Native is not on the UK list because it's a US breed. But it's listed as critical on the Livestock Conservancy list. Oxford Downs are another breed that are on both lists, listed as a minority breed in the UK and as a breed to watch on the Livestock Conservancy list. Shropshire, a British breed, one of the classic downs, and it's no longer on the Rare Breed Survival Trust list, although it was. 

So it's recovering a bit in the UK. And it is listed as a watch on the Livestock Conservancy list. And then White-Faced Woodland, which are listed as vulnerable on the Rare Breed Survival Trust list. And that means that there are fewer than 900 registered breeding ewes. And they're not on the Livestock Conservancy list. And I am again guessing that that's because there are none in the US. So, which of these breeds are you likely to be able to find in a commercial preparation? 

And which do you need to look for as fleeces? So Cheviot is widely available commercially. Lots of wholesalers carry it, which means that lots of dyers work with it. Horned Dorset and White-Faced Woodland are two breeds that my UK wholesaler provides. Really lovely fiber in both cases and they do immaculate processing. So you're starting to see more dyers working with white face woodland. I haven't found a lot of dyed Dorset horn though. And then Montedale is also, I have some of it in the shop that I had made, that I bought the fleeces and had them processed myself. 

I think Solitude Wools does a yarn in Montedale. But that's another one that, you know, you're probably going to have a bit of trouble finding it in commercial prep. But those are the four, really, that as far as I can tell from just my googling around on these breeds, that you can find available commercially. As fleeces, you can also find, and when I say this, I mean as fleeces that you might find these at a fleece sale. You can definitely find Cheviot. You may very well be able to find Montedale and you may be able to find Clun Forest. 

And so that actually leaves quite a few breeds in this group that are quite unusual to find. So those are the Suffolk. Yes, I did just say that they're the second most numerous sheep in the world. So we'll come back to that. The Dorset Down, the Hampshire, the Oxford, the Shropshire, the Gulf Coast Native, and the Ryland. So in any of those cases, you're probably going to have to actually seek out a Shepherd and... you know, in your local area and communicate with them about buying fleece from them. 

The reason that it's hard to find good fleeces in the classic downs, even the ones that are really numerous, is that these are sheep that, and the breeds that have been really successful like the Suffolk and the Hampshire, these are breeds that are raised for meat. 

And for a lot of shepherds, it's just they're not going to get enough for the wool to be able to cover the cost of shearing and by a good shearer who has sort of has hand spinners in mind. And they're not really inclined to... maintain the sheep in such a way that it's going to produce good fleeces. And I mean good in the sense of actually low vegetable matter fleeces. So you may be able to find someone raising Suffolk or Hampshire in your local area and you may go to them and say, can I have some of you find any of the classic downs? 

I've never been able to find any of them actually at a flea show, which is a real shame because these wools are just so lovely and delightful. So you may have to do a little bit of work. As I say, I at the moment, I have a bit of Cheviot the shop. I'm going to be ordering. I just ordered more. So I'm going to be dying more. And I'm going to be ordering more Dorset Horn as well. I do have some Whiteface Woodland and some Montedale in the shop right now. 

And there will be more. So let's entertain the scenario in which you find a shepherd and you get a fleece from him or her. When you get the fleece, it may not actually have been skirted because again, these are not shepherds who are really oriented towards producing fleeces for hand spinners. So you might have to skirt it yourself. And there's lots of information online about how to do this. But basically, skirting is just removing all the really, really yucky bits of the fleece, all the bits that have little bits of poop clinging to them, all the bits that are super, super filled with vegetables matter, the bellywool, usually the neckwool too. The neckwool is really lovely and soft but it usually has tons of hay in it. So just unroll the fleece onto a sheet and then remove all the edge bits, the bellywool, all the manure tags, and any parts that have more vegetable matter in them than you're prepared to deal with. And just be fairly ruthless here. A good skirting is going to save you a lot of time in washing and prep. Down fleeces aren't particularly greasy, but they may, as I've suggested, I think now about 10 times, they may be quite dirty. 

I usually do my sort of standard fleece washing process with two washes and two rinses. But I'll do more if I need to. And so if the water is very dirty after the second wash, I'll do a third one, and then I'll do my two rinses. I may also lower the water temperature a bit after the first wash. These fleeces can get, if they're over scoured, they can get kind of dry and a bit. I like to describe these fleeces as having a crisp hand, but they can get a little too crisp if they are scoured super aggressively. 

So I might take the water temperature down a little bit. Beth Smith in the Spinner's Book of Fleas mentions that she sometimes actually puts a little bit of unicorn fiber rinse, which is like a conditioner for wool, in the final rinse when she's washing down wools. She suggests that if you go this route, you might want to wash a sample of the fleece first. So wash a small sample exactly the way you're gonna wash the whole fleece, let it dry, and then give it a good feel and see if you wanna experiment with adding some fiber rinse. 

When you wash the whole fleece. And if you've got questions, general questions about washing fleece, I did do an episode on that, it's episode 18. And so you can see that episode for more. And there's also a freebie download checklist for that episode. 

All right, so let's talk about prep. These short crimpy wools really lend themselves to hand carding, but don't necessarily limit yourself to that. If the fleece has a lot of VM in it, and if the staple length is long enough, I sometimes comb them or flick them just to get the VM out of them, and then I'll either spin them as locks or as hand comb top, or I'll make them into roll eggs as an additional step. 

So if you're a person for whom VM is very bothersome, you might want to consider that. That takes a bit longer, but it does yield a really beautiful result. In terms of spinning suggestions, again, these are sort of, these wools are really built for hand carding into roll eggs and spinning long draw, and that will give you a wonderful, airy, super warm, super elastic, bouncy yarn. But don't, again, don't feel that's the only option. experiment sample. If you're fortunate to have a fleece with a slightly longer staple length, do try combing them and then spinning them worsted. I absolutely love down wools prepped and spun this way. 

There's just something marvelous about them and they're great obviously for socks. So what can you do with these wools other than make them into socks? They're kind of made for sock yarn, but they are also great for really really warm hats, mittens, and I think they're a great option for sweaters as well. Back in the days when sheep spots sold yarn, I had a batch of yarn made from Clun Forest. I bought the fleeces and then I had them processed and spun and that yarn was an absolutely brilliant sweater yarn. 

Really hard-wearing, no pilling, no saggy elbows, and not at all scratchy. So that's one thing that I really love about these wools. They're strong and they do have that crispness to them, but I don't find them itchy. And then for the true downs, the six I mentioned at the top of the show, anything you don't want to felt. So they're really ideal in that situation. I hope that you have enjoyed this chat about these underappreciated wools and I really, really hope that you will give them a try. 

As I mentioned, we currently have some Southdown, some Montedale, some Whiteface Woodland in the shop, so check those out if you're looking for some dyed down wools. If you were inspired by the Spinning for Socks episodes, I got you covered.  Next week I'm going to take a deeper dive into the down breeds with a breed spotlight on Southdown. So don't miss it.

Thank you so much for listening, my dears. I will see you next week. In the meantime, go spin something.