In general, when you have three things that are called the same thing, you tend to think of them as the same. Well, think again! I’ve been swatching like a mad woman to finish up the breed section for my book, and I had three different yarns from three different sources, all from Helsinge sheep (one of the heritage breeds from Sweden). These are interesting little sheep — they like woodland settings and are very good at keeping forests clear of underbrush.
As you can see, these guys have loads of variety. Even in the fleece above, you can see multiple colors from light to medium grey and brown. The ones in the picture to the left are pale brown to nearly white in addition to the grey and almost black. So there is no chance that I’m going to get 3 yarns that are identical from three different sources. And that’s just what happened.
The first one I tried is a hand spun from one of the sheep above. It was spun from a batt that was likely prepared from a whole fleece, so included a range of different fiber types. While it’s a lovely silver-grey color, it turned out to be really dry, coarse, and scratchy as all get out. Not a good knitting yarn. I’m thinking the dryness may have something to do with the fact that these woodland sheep are good foragers. That means that they eat bark and brush, and likely don’t produce lots of lanolin.
This swatch came from a skein spun by my friend Josefin Waltin. She too had some issues with the dryness of the fleece, and had to exercise quite some care to get it spun into yarn she thought would be good for knitting. What she produced was light and airy, but still way too scratchy for my taste. I do like rustic yarns, but so far, Helsinge isn’t working out for me.
The third I tried is a mill-spun Helsinge yarn from Winterliagården. I need to give that farm a little plug because Erika’s selection of yarn from her own sheep is impressive and the quality is outstanding.
The yarn is well-spun, and as I said, of outstanding quality. But it’s just not working. Maybe I just haven’t found the right use for it yet.
I am not in love with Helsinge yarn. I was getting good stitch definition when I started working with the Winterliagården swatch, so added in some cables to see what would happen. I’m used to working cables with yarns that don’t have lots of halo. Smoother yarns tend to produce much crisper cables. I thought after I was finished with the swatch and had blocked it that the cables actually look nice — their subtle nature in this yarn would make an interesting design choice.
Still, one of the big reasons I’ve been working so hard on these different breeds is that I want to understand how each can be used and contribute their individual characteristics to yarn that is enjoyable to knit with and at the same time is unique.
I did a little searching about and discovered that one of the yarn producers I “met” on Etsy and later in person at the wool festival in Kil, Sweden in February — Anita Grahn — has blended Helsinge into her yarn called “Driftwood.” It’s only 4% of the blend, and is mixed with Värmland lambswool, Finull and angora. VERY soft. Anita goes to great lengths to blend fibers to get exactly what she wants, so I have sent her a message asking her how she decides on her blends. Her answer will be part of an upcoming post.
As you already know, I’m sort of obsessed with Swedish sheep breeds. My list of those is now at 19. That is 19 different kinds of sheep that have developed into unique breeds over the years. Some of them are descended from imported sheep, but since they have now been in Sweden for as many as 300 years, I’m guessing that they have assimilated. I suppose you could do fancy studies to see exactly how unique they are compared to the ancestral sheep, but I’m going to hang onto my theory that they are now unique Swedish sheep until I’m shown otherwise. With 19 different kinds of sheep, each having their own characteristics, it seems to me you can produce many different yarns.
As a knitter, I can tell you that I can’t think of a good use for 100% Rya yarn, for example, although its sheen is absolutely gorgeous. Wearing a Rya sweater would be like wearing steel wool! It is a good weaving yarn. Understanding the characteristics of each of these fleeces can lead to combinations that are well beyond what most crafters have available. Just using these 19 breeds as an example, mixing their wool for specialized yarn could lead to an astronomical number of possibilities. If you just mixed each of these 19 50/50 with the others, you would get 342 different yarns. There’s a lifetime of possibilities!
But to show you how crazy this can get, if you used only 10 of these sheep breeds and made every possible combination using equal amounts of each, you would have more than 335 billion different yarns (I had to have Bruce do the math). Many of them would probably be terrible – unusable – because you weren’t taking into account the different properties of each type of fleece and how they might work together to make a good yarn.
The reason I bring up this crazy number of unique yarns you could make without even trying very hard to use the best characteristics of each is because I want to tell you what makes Swedish wool so special. By capitalizing on specific attributes of each breed it possible to create the most interesting, special and unique yarns anywhere. Swedish wool – and Swedish sheep are incredible. And, they are a nearly infinitely renewable resource.
So, maybe 100% Helsinge won’t win any contests as a knitting yarn. But I know that these sheep are worth much more than just clearing underbrush. We just have to dream a bigger dream of what they can be.
I appreciate you sharing your opinions and feedback on knitability. Looking forward to you book!!