Good Gute!

The postman is my friend. Today he left a box on my front porch which contains my first samples of ancient Viking age Gute sheep wool! It appears that the squeaky wheel does get the oil or in this case the wool!
It’s only a wee sample as it is going into winter in the Northern Hemisphere and not the time for shearing this ancient breed but when shearing time comes around again I am first off the rank to get some full fleeces for spinning and weaving!

The sample is much of the tougher outer fleece but I was so eager I couldn’t wait for the next shearing season. It reminds me of the Norwegian Spelsau wool having a quick look at it. Cant wait to have a play with it.

The lovely lady who I been in contact with has sent me lots of wonderful pictures of these amazing sheep and a web cam link to her paddock which works every now and then but I only remember to look when it is daytime here and night time in Sweden. Must try looking tonight to see if I can see the sheep in their paddock!

Herdwick and Black Welsh Wools

Very excited to find these two wool samples in my mailbox this morning. The grey wool is from a sheep called a Herdwick more info at this link http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herdwickwhich happens to be a breed of sheep my ancestors on my family tree from the Cumbria part of England probably would have seen regularly.

The Herdwick is a breed of domestic sheep native to the Lake District of Cumbria in North West England. The name “Herdwick” is derived from the Old Norse herdvyck, meaning sheep pasture

picture by Ben Holliday

I also got some Black Welsh mountain sheep wool. More info about them here http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Welsh_Mountain_sheep. They look like this

picture by Simon and Alison Downham

Look forward to seeing how they spin and making things out of them