Article by Leslie Shelor

 

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There's a new breed of sheep in town, at least in Patrick County, Virginia.  Border Springs Farm in Patrick Springs is now raising an uncommon sheep called the Texel.  Texel sheep have only been in the United States since 1985 but are fast becoming a popular lean meat source in the United States, Australia and Europe. 

The Texel originated in the Netherlands, on an island of the same name as the sheep, but the true history of the breed is unknown.  It is probably a cross of several English breeds and the resulting cross, called Texel, now makes up a large portion of the national flock of the Netherlands.  The superior quality of the meat produced by the breed caught the attention of shepherds in other countries and Texel sheep have been imported to the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and into the United States. 

Raw Texel Wool

In February of this year (2009) Mr. Craig Rogers of Border Springs Farm called me and invited me and other spinners down to see his Texel sheep sheared in Patrick Springs.  I had never worked with Texel before, so I was interested and my friend Linda came along to help with skirting the fleeces.  We headed down the mountain on an unseasonably warm early spring day.  "Skirting" is removing the undesirable portions of a fleece...usually the belly wool and along the edges of the fleece where the sheep lays down and gets the wool dirty.  Manure, felted wool, hairy spots, anything that a spinner would not want to see in her fleece is pulled off and discarded.  Many farmers use the discarded bits for mulch. 

Skirting is hard, but enjoyable work.  By the time we were ready to leave, though, Linda and I had picked out several lovely fleeces to take home.  Since this was a wool totally unfamiliar to me, I thought my share of the fleeces would be enough to have processed into roving and be enough for me to spin some yarn from through the winter as well as have roving to sell in the shop.  My first impression of the wool locks were that they were very springy but that they had a very good length.  The fleeces were very clean.  Texel fiber is known for producing a lofty yarn with good insulating qualities that can be knitted into warm outer garments such as mittens, scarves and hats.  Texel wool can be made into a sturdy felt good for handbags, outer wear and more.

Fleeces left at the mill for processing

My next step in working with a fleece is to decide how I want to process it.  Some fleeces I work with by hand myself, because I want to blend angora with it, or bring out some special quality of the wool, such as softness or color.  With this quantity of fleece, though, I knew I would be needing help with having the wool processed.  Since the wool originated in Virginia, I set out searching for a small Virginia fiber mill to wash and process it into roving ready for spinning.  I was very lucky in my timing in that when I posted my search to Ravelry, I was informed that a new mill was opening in Ruckersville, Virginia.  Very soon after Linda and I set off on a road trip to the Central Virginia Fiber Mill, filling her little truck with bags of Texel wool!  It was great fun to see the mill after so many years of sending fleece away to be processed.  It happened that Mary was processing another large quantity of Texel wool (could it have been from Border Springs Farm) and was already somewhat familiar with the qualities.  One of our fleeces had different characteristics to the other fleeces and we opted to have it processed separately from the others. 

In record time I was unpacking piles of lovely roving from my car (the boyfriend agreed to swing by the mill on his way south and pick up the completed roving) just in time for the Sedalia Spring Fiber Festival.  I took several four ounce balls of roving with me to the show and people were very interested in the new-to-them fiber.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the wool was much softer than I had expected.  As soon as I had the opportunity I dyed some of the roving with acid dyes and saw that Texel takes color very well.  The spun yarn, however, has the expected springy loftiness.  The roving, thanks to the length of the wool and the excellent processing by Mary at Central Virginia Fiber Mill, spins wonderfully, floating right out of the hand into springy singles.  I enjoyed how fast it spun up.  The knitted sample feels to me like this will be a sturdy and nice yarn for mittens, hats or possibly even a coat.

Undyed Texel Roving

Handspun Two-ply Texel wool yarn, undyed

Hand dyed, hand painted Texel wool roving in red, pink and orange

Hand dyed, hand painted Texel wool roving in shades of blue

Hand spun, hand dyed two-ply Texel wool yarn

Knitted sample of Texel handspun yarn