Wool of the week: romney edition

Romney
This was by far my most fun spin of my wool of the week series so far. It also made me the happiest with the results, and when I was considering which colour would look good to dye it, I couldn’t see any other way than to keep it naturally undyed. All of the other wools I have worked with in this project have been white, but this Romney breed wool was a beautiful, mild grey/warm silver. It had a long staple (length of the individual fibres, and was relatively coarser to me (having just worked with merino. The micron count of my meting was far lower (finer) than the Romney—which is actually a fine longwool). The Romney breed is one of those resilient breeds well adapted in their evolvution in their original homeland, well-drained salt marshes in England. I had to look up how much they weigh (it just wasn’t listed in the Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook easily locatable) and it seems depending on ram or ewe that they range between 150-225 lbs, making them a medium to small sheep breed build. I was curious as the Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook does list their average fleece weights between 8-12 lbs. I thought, well, gee, that’s kind of small relative to what I have been working with, those breeds’ average fleece weights. So perhaps this WOULD be a really good consideration of a breed for my area of the country (mud country) and my processing limit as a very small wool processor, starting out. I do have to say, if the breed specs haven’t fought my eye as s farmer yet, the fiber has caught my eye as a spinner, and seeing the finished yarn made me pull it to my face, smell it, squish it, and admire it with inspiring dreams bubbling up in my brain. Ooooo could I pair it with Gotland breed wool for a grey sleek sweater outfit??? Amongst other dreams.
I really loved working with this fiber. The lanolin natural grease was low and easy to cut down in the wash, the fibers didn’t hold a lot of dirt or VM. The crimp was lovely and the locks weren’t hard or felted. It combed well and puffed up and held together beautiful in my combed top sweet rolls. I love the look of a worsted-spun yarn. It spun effortlessly and strongly, and ended up looking like a classic worsted spin. I can’t wait to knit with it!