Fibre Focus Friday: Icelandic & The Escrigg Flock

You won't be surprised to learn that the Icelandic sheep comes from...wait for it...Iceland.  The Icelandic belongs to a group known as the Northern European Short-tailed group; this is sheep from the North of Europe which are naturally hardy and are born with short, tapered tales.  

Although the breed has been dispersed across the world due to it's popularity, the flocks that are in Iceland have have not been influenced by any other breeds; this means that those on the island are classd as one of the purest breeds of sheep in the world.  It's actually illegal to import sheep into Iceland!

The fleece of an Icelandic is dual-coated, this means it has a softer, shorter fibre closer to the skin and a longer, more coarse fibre on the outside of the fleece.  This is how they thrive in harsh conditions, the longer, coarser fibres help to repel the weather while the shorter fibres keep them warm.  This makes the fibre very characterful, as well as very popular for warm garments.  Our Icelandic tops have been combed to remove the most coarse fibres, but not so much that we lose the beautiful natural texture of the fibre.

Colouring within the breed is very interesting.  While some breeds have a lot of colours and patterns (for example the Shetland), the Icelandic has two colours; brown and black.  There are then six patterns which are used by their genes and result in variations in shade, tone and colour distribution.  White fleeces are classed as a pattern as if a sheep carries the white pattern gene, it will be white. 

In terms of a crafting fibre, Icelandic is highly versatile.  It spins well (once you get used to the slightly varied fibre lengths), it will create a firm felted fabric and it can also be used for needlefelting as it add a fantastic texture and natural shade to creations.

This week, we've got a shepherd's perspcitve of the breed from the Escrigg Flock run by Chris and Emily.

"The Escrigg flock is a small family owned flock based in South Cumbria belonging to Chris and Emily Maudsley. We already had a flock of Jacob sheep and we purchased our first Icelandic sheep in 2019 after seeing some on display at a local county show and falling in love with the breed. We arranged to visit a local breeders flock and after a special ewe called Holly caught our eye we eventually managed to persuade the breeder to sell her to us, and later purchased a ewe lamb to come with her. We welcomed our first lambs in 2020 and they have proven to be fantastic mothers, easy lambing and the fleeces are exquisite. The lambs are quite small when born but extremely sharp and a up and feeding straight away! We still have Holly and are now onto her great granddaughters being born last year! 

We love their characters, once they trust you they will follow you anywhere, they are very easy to manage. Our daughter showed a shearling in young handlers when she was only two! We enjoy getting ours out to shows and promoting the breed. 

They are bigger than most breeds of primitive sheep and I love the range of colours they come in. They can be horned or polled. They are fantastic conservation grazers and they love browsing hedges. 

 In Iceland they are a triple purpose breed as they are the only sheep out there so they are used for meat, milk and fibre. The Icelandic fleece is unique in having two distinct layers, the longer, silky tog layer, and a very fine, soft thel layer. They are always in demand for spinning and for making felted vegetarian sheepskins." 

Thank you to Emily and Chris for being part of the blog this week; photo credit goes to them and their Icelandic flock!

If you want to get your hands on osme Icelandic to ahve a play with, you can find it here.