Portland, at a quick glance

Portland ewe with lambs.
Photo from sheep101.info

 Portland Sheep
--

from opendomesday.org


PLACE: PORTLAND
Hundred: Cullifordtree
County: Dorset
Total population: 96 households (very large).
Households: 1 villager. 90 smallholders. 5 slaves.
Ploughland: 3 lord's plough teams. 23 men's plough teams.
Other resources: Meadow 8 acres. Pasture 8 * 8 furlongs.
Livestock in 1086: 3 cobs. 14 cattle. 27 pigs. 900 sheep.
Lord in 1066: King Edward.
Lord in 1086: King William.
Tenant-in-chief in 1086: King William.
Phillimore reference: 1,1


Livestock in 1086: 3 cobs. 14 cattle. 27 pigs. 900 sheep.

Portland rams.
Image from sheep101.info

"To find a living example of the Celtic type that came to Britain by the southern route, we have to go to another island, at the opposite end of the country. Here a breed whose lineage reached back into the Iron Age survived into the least century. It's forebears once grazed across the heaths and downs of south-west England in a great family of tan-faced, horned sheep...Long after this type disappeared from the mainland it survived on the Isle of Portland, living  on spare pasture, and was renowned for its sweet, delicate mutton, rich  cheese and fine wool."  (Counting Sheep, pps. 11-12)


"Best known for. Being a historic breed with a mild-tasting meat that was favored by British royalty, and a fleece that is interesting to work with." -F&FSB, pg 229 of ebook



Portland is believed to have been in Britain before the Romans came, and survived much of the "improvements" that were done during the Industrial Revolution due to several factors: being some of the only type of sheep that were able to survive on the Isle of Portland, and being isolated in a bit of land that became an island when the waters got too high. From sheep101.info, "It is most likely that the Portland is all that is left of the Western Tanfaced horn, common in the Southwest during the Middle Ages."



Early in the 20th century, the breed was greatly reduced, and no longer found on the Isle of Portland. At Calke Abbey in Derbyshire, a flock had been established in 1770, and pockets of flocks survived elsewhere. While no numbers were given, writings seem to indicate that, like the Manx, this was a breed on the brink of extinction. Recently, the sheep were reintroduced back to the Isle of Portland.With the RBST reporting that ewes are usually around 35-40kg (78-100 lbs) and rams are around 55kg (approx 120 lbs), the sheep themselves are small. Both sexes have horns, with the males having larger, gracefully curling horns. They are easy lambers, with multiples being rare - but they are able to breed "out of season". They are also thrifty eaters, being able to eat scrub and shrubs that more delicate sheep are unable to. Apparently, they are good for conservation work.


The fleece is an interesting one, and given the size of the sheep it's from, it's no surprize that the fleece is on the small side as well, coming in about 2-3kg (4.5-6.5 lbs). The micron count (taken from Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook), is 26-31 microns (SC: 50s-60s); which classifies the fleece in the medium/coarse category. The staple length of the fiber is about 6.5-10 cm (2.5-4") (again, F&FSB). The fleece often has small reddish tan hairs in it, from the face and legs, and is creamy in color.  While "coarse", it's not unpleasant. A few things I don't know just yet is how what is available modernly is different from what was available in pre-1700's. If I had to take a guess, I would say not much since a flock was established at an abbey in the 1770's, so there is some continuity in the breed. 

--

The fleece I used was purchased raw from a seller in England. Light skirting was done before putting it in the post, to help with cost of postage. When I received it, I did open  it up and skirt it. Next, I rebagged it into smaller quantities to wash it, and scoured it. Several washings with Ivory dish soap, and Dreft laundry detergent. While there's been a lot of speculation about how scouring would have been done in period, I choose the modern method as the best to remove dirt and lanolin and to prevent an interest from insects (DIEDIEDIE).

 After scouring, I air dried the wool. Then, I went about processing it, starting with minicombs that are double rowed. These are similar to images from illuminated manuscripts, with the difference that they are smaller. (And less pointy, which means I'm less likely to take a chunk of flesh out accidentally.)

After several passes through with the combs, the combed fleece is set aside in a bag, and another batch is started. 

For spinning, I used combed fleece, and didn't run it through the drum carder. I spun it using a drop spindle, a bottom weight drop spindle, and plied it to make a 2-ply yarn. 

The spindle is a homemade one, weighing less than an ounce total. 

--

Work Cited

Bridge, Terry. Rare Breeds: Unusual Farm Animals from Around the World. New York: Chartwell     Books, Inc.; 2010.

Dowling, Robert and Lawrence Alderson.  Rare Breeds: Endangered Farm Animals in Photographs. Boston: Little, Brown and Company; 1994. First North American Edition.

Robson, Deborah and Carol Ekarius. The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook : More Than 200 Fibers from Animal to Spun Yarn. North Adams, Mass.: Storey Pub.; 2011.

Trow-Smith, Robert. English Husbandry: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day. London: Faber and Faber Ltd.; 1951.

Walling, Philip. Counting Sheep: A Celebration of the Pastoral Heritage of Britain. London: Profile Books, LTD.; 2014.

Also:
www.rbst.org.uk
sheep101.info

Bobbin Lace revision

So, I screwed up. Since I wasn't able to present my revision of my bobbin lace research. I'm going to do one more revision, compiling all my updates into one, more cohesive document.

That's going to come in the next few weeks. I also have to take out some images, because of copyright. So, stay tuned (if anyone watches).

This is the pits!

So, onto the avocado pits!

A lot of the pits were freezer burned/freezer dried? Well, in the freezer for a long time.

I ended up with about 24 ounces of pits, that were chopped in half, and then chopped into at least 1/8ths after that (more if the pits were bigger, less if the pits were smaller.)

One thing I learned from the peels was that the 3:1 ratio was probably too much wool (12 ounces peel to 4 ounces wool). I think I would have gotten a better color with a 4:1 or even a 6:1 ratio.

So, I upped the dye stuff to wool ratio for the pits. I've read that this should produce a rosie beige. We'll see.

I'm not mordanting the wool for this, as there are (according to the internets), enough tannins in the pits to dye without mordants. I figured why not give it a try and see what happens.

Chopped pits are in the pot, with ample water. They were on medium heat, and have been turned down to low. Going to let them simmer for probably an hour and then cool slightly before straining and adding the wetted wool.

Part of me wants to just add the wool to the pits, but there's a lot of small, saw dust like stuff from chopping up the (very dried) pits. I think the color will be better if there's contact between the dye stuff and the wool, but there's also larger chance of the dye stuff getting mixed up in the wool, meaning more time combing. (But I have to do that anyway, so I'm tempted to just say screw it and throw the wool into the dye pot with the dye stuff.)

Avocados!

So, I've been collecting avocado peels and pits from friends for ages. I'd love to say how long, but I honestly can't remember.

The Dear Husband has been hinting that he'd like some of the freezer back from avocados (as well as yarn), so I got around to taking a few bags out.

A lot of the peels had been in the freezer for a while. Some of the pits were rock hard from freezer burn. And I scraped a lot of remaining avocado from the skins. (Note to self - wash the peels before putting them in the freezer. That helps with the ones I've done, but not the ones I've gotten from other people.)

So, with the peels, I scraped what avocado I could off the peels, and chopped/tore them up into nickel to quarter sized pieces.  I ended up with about about 12.5 ounces of avocado peel, and used about 4 ounces of wool (cheviot, mostly, but might have some other breeds in there.)
Wool was mordanted with normal amount of alum and cot (2T alum/1.5 Cream of Tarter)

The dye was strained using an old cotton bedsheet, because of all the avocado bits that were loosened. The bedsheet was chosen over cheesecloth because of the tighter weave. The avocado bits were really small, and the worry was that it would manage to get through the cheese cloth.

After straining, I resoaked the peels adding 1.5 c of baking soda added to dye pot after a while. The extract did become deeper. I added a cup of baking soda to the wool and in process dyeing.

After about 45 minutes, I strained the second extract into the dye pot with the wool.

Pokeberries, 2016

One of these years, I need to get all my pictures off my camera and onto these blog posts... Alas, another thing on the To Do list.

So, last year I used this as the basis for dyeing with pokeberries:

https://osbornfiber.com/2010/09/27/dyeing-with-pokeberries/

And decided to give it a try again. However, there is one thing I hadn't counted on. I shouldn't take the pokeberries out of the freezer until I'm ready to use them. I meant to dye with them about a week ago (or was it two?). So, the berries have been in my fridge for at least a week. Not the end of the world, but the berries were not as firm as they were last year. In fact, they were... squicky. I have no better way to describe them.

I decided to soldier on, because - pokeberries! -and just figured I'd deal with things like not knowing the weight of just the berries, because I did them in small batches. And by that I mean that squished and squeeze the stems/berries in the bag first, and then I removed the berries from the stem in small batches, and the removed berries went into a strainer sitting in the pot I thought I was going to use. (Last year, I used a crock pot. My concern with my crock pot is that it hasn't been giving consistent results - sometimes it gives great results, other times it doesn't seem to get hot enough for long enough.) I think I'm just going to add the dye to the cooled mordant bath as the pot is bigger.

So, this year I'm using the stove. (Sorry, love!) It's rather colorful after the past few weeks of walnuts, annatto, and exhaust baths. I'm trying to get the kitchen cleared out, which is why I have someone coming over tomorrow and want to get this done today.

Per the Osborn Fibers post, I am currently mordanting the wool (about 4 oz give or take of corridale/cormo cross) in a 50/50 mix of water and distilled vinegar. It was simmering for about an hour, so now I'm going to let it cool. Normally, I'd mix things together in one pot, or pour the dye stuff into the warm mordant bath, but pokeberry dye is rather heat sensitive, so I'm letting it cool down. I'm hoping to get one bath in before I need to get going for the evening.

Hopefully, in the next few days I'll get this done and remember to get pictures taken.

Fall dyeing, day one - walnut and annatto

I've been playing with dyes again, starting with walnut and annatto.

For the walnut bath, I mordanted the 4 ounces ish of fiber (Peredale, washed, but not processed). The walnut juice/extract (you'll hear me use both terms, but basically, soaked some black walnuts that I collected while helping out friends out at Bristol Ren Fair in Bristol, WI.) I let them turn brown/black.

I did a first boil/soak, strained, and gave that to a friend for walnut ink (for more on that, I suggest looking up Ian the Green's blog. He had a lot on different inks, and a few posts on walnut ink.)

After that, I put the walnuts in a 5gal orange bucket, added water, and let them sit for a while. Like, a few weeks. When I wanted to dye with extract, I just strained some, refilled the liquid in the bucket, and went to the stove.

The wool came out a nice light brown. Nothing too exciting, but I figured I'd have some fun and overdye it with some old annatto I had found while cleaning out the kitchen. Three handfuls of annatto seeds, with some baking soda, bring to temp, let sit, and they let cool.

I did that and added it to the walnut bath. And then I did it again, with the remainder of the annatto I had. I didn't measure anything, but added about 1 cup of baking soda. Heated, let simmer for about 20-30 mins, and strained. Added to the walnut bye bath, and brought the walnut bath to a simmer again.

The color I was hoping for was... I don't even know. But what I ended up with was very autumnal. A golden auburny orange sort of color.  Part of me thinks "rusty 70's orange" but my husband thought it was cool (the auburny description was from him) . I think I'll like it more when it's blended with something. Maybe like a robin's breast red, or even a yellow, green or brown. We'll see what I come up with.

Queen Anne's Lace 2016, take 1

My yard is full of Queen Anne's Lace (QAL), once again.

Went out today, and harvested QAL. As I did, I cut it up into 2-3":  roots, stems, and flowers. I didn't weigh them, but filled a Halloween plastic cauldron full of the chopped bits. Before I harvested the QAL I put water into a 6 qt crock pot - about a gallon's worth. When the plastic cauldron was mostly full, I went and put as much into the crock pot as I could do, which was most of the cauldron, but not all.

I've been having concerns about my crock pot getting things hot enough, so I let the QAL in the crock pot stew for several hours before adding more water.

I did some testing of my tap water, and figured it to be about 8ish. Not an exact measure, but it does give me more of an idea of what I'm starting at with the water.

The last time I did this, dipping a small skeing in ammonia and it turned it darker, so I'm going to add some baking soda to see if I can get more of a shift in color.

Now, to mordant wool after dinner arrives.