[Craftylibrarian]

Hello,

I am midway through a project to create a handspun and handwoven wallhanging highlighting the wonderful variety of native british sheep breeds. I'm hoping to exhibit this at the Association of Guilds of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers national exhibition next year. below are the breeds that are missing from my stash. Can anyone help? I don't need a full fleece of each - 50g of fleece would be more than enough.  Happy to pay postage, and for the fibre, or I have a large quantity of the breeds not on the list below if you are a spinner and would like to swap. Thank you! Charlie.

BORDER LEICESTER
BRECKNOCK HILL
BRITISH GALWAY
DALESBRED
DEVON CLOSEWOOL
HILL RADNOR
WILTSHIRE HORN

[funkyfish]

If you are on facebook have a look at Spring grove alpacas and rare breeds- she has a lot of different fibres and wools.

[ChaseView]

Hello,
We have Greyface Dartmoor fleeces and Border Leicester wool (no Border Leicester fleece left) if that helps?
Happy to post to you.


Liz

[ChaseView]

Hello again,
We also have Balwen fleeces which is a type of Welsh Mountain sheep, in case you need that too.


 

[SallyintNorth]

Hi Charlie  , glad you found your way over here.

Any Ravellers probably already know about Charlie's project; she's been doing a great job going through all the breeds, writing up about them and taking pics of the yarns she's made. 

I thought TASers may be able to help with some of the last few breeds...

[Bramblecot]

I can send you some GFD - but good luck spinning it!  I also have some trimmings from this year's GFD lambs if that is any use.  Really soft and curly but short lengths about 2".  It is quite different to the adult fleece.
Can probably get hold of black Welsh Mountain if no-one else offers.  Good luck with your project

[Brandi]

Do you need any badger face?

[goosepimple]

Sorry, have rare breeds but not the ones you need - try the RBSTwebsite, the officer for the north Ruth Dalton, may have some, they had a wall of wool at the Highland Show and the Border Union Show and maybe haven't sold all the fleeces yet.  Good luck, sounds great.

[BALLOCH]

I have pure black welsh mountain if u need  and know someone in wales with hill randors I can ring for you if you cant get any.

[Susannah]

Jacob or Hebridean any good?

[cfegower]

we have some raw beulah fleece, be happy to send you some. ceri

[Craftylibrarian]

Hello!

Sorry for posting this thread and then promptly disappearing off the face of the earth! I do have a good excuse, as I have been working for what seems like aeons on my husband's job application. If he gets the position it will put us one step closer to a smallholding as we'll be moving to a much more rural part of the UK and he has promised (although I don't have it in writing, yet) that I can at least have chickens!

Thanks for all your offers of fleece. I am gradually sourcing the remaining breeds on my list, and will update the list if I can work out how to.

I managed to find some Greyface Dartmoor, so I no longer need that - it seems to be quite prevalent on this board! Sounds exciting to spin.

And I have spun up some black welsh mountain, balwen and badgerface - do you think these are reasonably representative of the welsh mountain type or should I try to get some white welsh mountain too?

Thanks for the offer of Border Leicester wool - but I definitely want to spin all the breeds rather than use wool as one of my personal reasons for attempting this project was to improve my spinning skills and to be able to stand in front of my hanging and say - I made that, 100% (well, not the background, as I am not good enough to spin thousands of yarns of thinner than laceweight weaving yarn, but I'm splitting hairs).

 I will definitely get in touch with Ruth if I can, as I know she is good at sourcing rare breeds :-)

Waffling now, sorry!

Thanks again.