Description
A superb, almost goth bundle of dark purple, pink and violet wool locks from one of my favourite breeds: Leicester Longwool.
This lovely 1oz bundle has really nice curl definition and its staple of 10″ (approx.) means you’ll get a lot to work with. Doll hair rerooting, anyone?
These locks came from a lamb called Bright Eyes’ first shear (shearling locks). These are the softest and longest the animal will ever produce in their lifetime. You can attest how lovely this beautiful fleece is in the last two photos.
I have carefully scoured and hand washed the locks, separating them into practical 1 ounce bundles. I have done my utmost to preserve the fibre’s curly structure, so please be aware that tiny amounts of vegetable matter may still be present.
This wool was directly sourced from the shepherd, in a small UK-based farm dedicated to this British native rare breed.
What are these curly wool locks good for?
Long wools with such well defined lock structure are great for various crafts:
- Spinning – I love these to spin art yarns. Keeping the lock structure and just spinning them as is is my jam.
- Wet felting – adding some of these locks to a felted work can yield some beautiful and colourfully textured results.
- Needle felting – you can add curls to a felted sculpture, or turn the locks into a mermaid’s hair. Your imagination is the limit.
- Dollmaking – rerooting doll hair. A lot of my hand dyed curly wool locks have ended up as gorgeous doll hair!
A little note about the Leicester Longwool breed
The Leicester Longwool, also known as Bakewell Leicester, Improved Leicester and New Leicester, was originally developed by the breeding innovator Robert Bakewell in the 18th century.
They are among the world’s largest sheep breed. Their fleeces have beautiful and distinct locks with well-defined crimp, which can grow up to 36cm or 14″ long. Leicester Longwool sheep’s wool diameter ranges from 32 to 46 microns, making it a very soft, yet sturdy, fibre.
This breed is classified as “endangered” by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, with fewer than 500 registered breeding females remaining in the UK. In North America, the Leicester Longwool is preserved by the efforts of private breeders. *
Disclaimer(s)
Although I’ve done my very best to make sure colours run true in the photos, the darker areas of these locks (the “aubergine” colour) looks lighter than reality in the closeup photo. Please note however that your monitor settings may differ from mine and I can’t say how it’ll appear on your end.
The last two photos in this listing are of the same fleece, but are not part of the listing sale.
* – information gathered from Wikipedia and The Field Guide to Fleece (by Deborah Robson and Carol Ekarius).
