No, pas de toison français…
But I do have a tiny amount – 20g or so – of fibre from a sheep with a French name:
I got this even after hearing things about this sheepiest of sheepy sheep. Specifically that this paragon of sheepdom, this avatar of sheepiness, this apotheosis of Ovidae*, has, well, shit fleece. Despite appearing to be the Living Epitome of Fluff on Earth, its wool is coarse, abrasive and frankly worthless for anything but pot-scourers, though you’d probably want something that was kinder to your hands…
Knowing all this, I still went ahead and bought some. I do not have a pic of it when it arrived in the post, but, take it from me – I know whereof I speak – it came out of the envelope looking like the hair from the end of a cow’s tail:
On first touch, it was rougher than a cow’s tail. Washing did nothing to improve the feel, it just made the individual hairs sprout out of the locks. I even tried my intensive moisturising hair conditioner on it – nada. The locks do have a bit of a curl to them, but it’s really just the last inch or so that curls. The rest is straight, inelastic, and utterly lacking in crimp. It looks, feels, acts like … hair. I don’t get how a sheep breed developed for the Alps has fleece so lacking in downy goodness.
Nevertheless, I spun that sucker. It spun surprisingly easily, without trying to tangle or felt in the hands. The individual hairs are quite thick: I tend to spin finer singles, but this is the first occasion where I’ve been able to count the individual hairs in one of my singles:
I would not use it for anything that gets closer to your skin than a hat-veil – it’s quite stiff and unyielding, so it may have suitable sculptural qualities. Spun thicker, it might have uses in some housewares (net curtains?), cordage, or basket-weaving. I plan to try Irish lace crocheting with it.
One positive from the experience – this could be a good fibre for teaching spinning. The fibre moved very smoothly through my hands without tangling or bunching or sticking to itself like normal wool does (or is that just me??!), and there was no problem keeping the twist out of the fibre supply. As a result, I got to practice a few different drafting techniques, including the dreaded long-draw that I messed up a few days ago. These would make Valais Blacknose a good practice fibre for a novice spinner, even if it’s overall a disappointing spinning experience.
Aside from that, I plied the two bobbins of black alpaca I worked on earlier, and started spinning a crazy batt that I think I got at Yarnfolk. It’s huge – about 50cm wide and 70cm long! I had a long think about how I wanted to spin it, looked at loads of tutorials, and finally decided to tear more-or-less uniformly coloured sections off it. There’s still substantial quantities of other colours in each section, so it’s not just going to be long runs of boring stripes. I finished one section today, basically orange, but transitioning through gold, brass, red and brown – and it’s so pretty on the bobbin! I’ll probably 2-ply each section to maintain the basic colour, then maybe make a basic shawl like Revontuli with it. Pics tomorrow!
Allons-y!
*: yes, yes, it’s Bovidae, but that calls to mind cattle, not sheep.
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