I went to Iceland in part to explore their sheep and especially the wool that they produce. Icelandic sheep are the only breed on the island. When the Vikings settled Iceland around 870 CE, they brought sheep with them. It has been illegal for centuries to bring any more to this island meaning this breed has developed in isolation. According to Robson and Ekarius*, this is one of the world’s purest livestock breeds.
Icelandic sheep are grown primarily for meat but those of us who are spinners know that their wool is prized for strength and beauty. In Iceland there is a company named Istex that manages most of the wool clip of the country. I shared a tour of the scouring facility in Blönduós on my blog HERE a few weeks ago.
These sheep are shorn twice a year. The shearing in the fall when they’ve just come down from the mountains where they spend the summer is the best wool. This is because it is cleaner. The second shearing is in February or March before lambing after the sheep have been in the barns for the winter. This wool is mostly used for carpets. Sheep barns look like this and you can imagine that the sheep are busy bumping into each other and dragging dirt and hay across each other’s backs for many months.
Icelandic fleece on Akur farm. They’re still in the barn for the winter. These ewes are ready to lamb soon.
Icelandic lambs
I was in Iceland for the month of April, 2022 and though lambing is usually in May, there were a few ewes beginning to lamb before we left. We were able to visit a farm where 6 lambs had been born, most of them due to a naughty ram who got out before schedule.
The lambs we saw were born to 4 mothers. Two of them had twins which is common with these sheep, and two had single lambs. The first lamb born to this farm was called the king lamb. The first female lambs were the queen lambs (twins).
The king lamb, one day old. Akur farm.
I can tell you that though they are really cute and they do adorable things, baby lambs are not cuddly! They’re all legs and they definitely don’t melt into your arms the way a puppy does. We held the king lamb briefly, but the ewes in the barn were even getting nervous when it got longer than a few minutes and the mama ewe was pretty unhappy. So he went back to his mama right away. This guy was from an insemination because this farm has all black and white sheep and they want to introduce some brown genes to vary their colors for spinning fleeces. This little guy is definitely a step in the right direction!
A queen lamb just a few hours old.
This little lady was only a few hours old. See the lamb curls?
These were the queen lambs from this farm: the first female lambs born this year. This mother was super nervous and did not want us looking too long at her babies. The lambs like to hide under the hay rack/walkway. Mama and babies get to stay in little pens like this separated from the other ewes for awhile. But eventually too many lambs come and they have to move into enclosures with more lambs and ewes together. When they’re a little older they’ll get to go outside to the paddock and eventually up to the heath for the summer.
These were the queen lambs from this farm: the first female lambs born this year.
This Icelandic ewe had given birth the night before. She was pretty calm about visitors. The more experienced ewes don’t seem bothered by people. The new mothers were really nervous.
An Icelandic ewe, April in the barn
This Icelandic ram was big! He has had his horns trimmed so they don’t grow into his eyes.
The video below gives you a better feel for the barn and the lambs. Watch for the newborn lambs and their wagging tails as they figure out how to drink. The farmer had to coax one of the newborns who was about an hour old to drink, but she got the hang of it pretty quickly and you can see her drinking in this video.
Visit an Icelandic sheep barn with me and see some brand new lambs
Spinning Icelandic Fleece: the more I spin, the more I learn
Icelandic lamb fleece: the curl at the tip only occurs in the first shearing.
I discussed spinning this fleece for tapestry weaving HERE and HERE.
I learned to spin not long ago and I still have a long way to go to be an expert spinner. But I wanted to learn to spin because I wanted to understand how the main material in my artwork behaves and how it can be manipulated to create effects depending on many factors such as fiber type, spinning method, size, bundling, plying, etc. What I have learned in the last 5 years has really paid off in my tapestry work. But I also found that I really enjoy spinning yarn.
Icelandic is a tricky yarn to spin, at least for me, an intermediate-level spinner. This is because it is dual-coated. I suppose I should say it is tricky to spin both coats together. The mills are carding the two coats together and spinning the yarn as a combined construction with both overcoat and undercoat incorporated. As a hand-spinner, I can separate the coats easily and spin them separately without too much difficulty.
I found that the outercoat, the tog, was very long, very strong, and spun fairly easily largely because of the staple length. I felt a little like I was spinning flax sometimes. I spun most of the tog in a sort of combed preparation that was pulled off hand-cards with a diz (yes, I said comb and card in the same sentence). I showed that in an earlier blog post.
Using handcards sort of like combs and a button for a diz. When in Iceland, you make due with what you have!
The thel, or the undercoat, was also not difficult to spin by itself and made a must softer yarn. It was when I tried to spin both coats together that I struggled more. Perhaps unsurprisingly to some of you spinners, I found that if I spun it in the grease (without washing first), I had an easier time. Icelandic fleece does not have as much lanolin as some other fleeces I’ve worked with and it was quite pleasant to spin “in the grease”.
I didn’t dare try this fleece on the drum carder. I’m afraid the very long outercoat will get wrapped around the licker-in so fiercely I’ll never get it off. But I might try cutting the outercoat in half and then having a go with both coats in the drum carder. Cross your fingers. I’m not optimistic about this experiment.
Now that I am home I am having fun playing with a couple bits of lamb fleece I was able to get before I left. A big thank you to both Maja Siska and Guðmann from Istex for finding me fleece I could experiment with. The little curls on the tips of the lamb fleece are what they grow in utero. After the first shearing, these curls never reappear so you can tell a lamb fleece from the curl. Did you see the little curls on the newborn lambs in the video above?
A gray Icelandic lamb fleece.
* Robson, R & Ekarius, C. (2009) The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook. North Adams, MA: Storey Publishing.
This book is an outstanding reference for spinning fiber and sheep breeds.