June Spin In podcast with two breeds of sheep

The June Spin In podcast was posted last week, but I like to put a reminder link in this blog for those listeners that are not subscribed to Itunes. Plus I have photos that I wanted to post for the two sheep breeds (cormo and montadale) I talk about in the podcast.

Cormo is a breed developed by crossing corridale and merino sheep. So it has many of the same characteristics as merino and is a very soft wool. It's harder to home process because of the higher lanolin, but wonderful to spin, especially in the lock.

Here's a photo of the locks from my breed sampler file:




I talk about how I like combing the cormo better than carding and that after combing I pulled some fiber through a diz and spun that. I also spun fiber straight from washed locks and I found that my singles from both methods were spinning to about the same WPI.

Here's a picture of two ply, combed and lock spun. Just like merino there's lots of bounce to the yarn.

The second breed of sheep I talk about is the Montadale, not a fleece most spinners will get to try unless they have a local shepherd raising that breed of sheep. It is a down sheep breed and is used for both meat and fleece. This means that the fleece is not a soft fleece, although it is certainly OK for socks by my standards and therefore probably sweaters too.

Here's the photo of the locks:

I had a very small sampling of fiber to work with on this breed, so I combed it all, and this is the sample yarn skein: