In Praise of Polwarth
It's been quite a while since I bought this downy soft Polwarth roving from Barb at Wild Geese. I bought 2 colors, the chocolate brown that I carded up with Alpaca and listed in my Etsy Shop and this beautiful fawn colored pencil roving. I still have some of the chocolate left but I'm sort of "browned out" for now. It's in my spinning line-up after a few doses of color therapy!
I just can't say enough about the softness of this fiber! Polwarth, in many ways, is almost an improvement over Merino, if such a thing were possible! Polwarth is a cross-breed of 75% Merino and 25% Lincoln, a long wool breed and although the results vary from sheep to sheep, whatever one this fleece came from sure got the best characteristics of both! My only observation which may seem like a drawback to some, is I think I would find it difficult to spin this fiber as lace weight in more than 1 ply. It has such fine crimp! I thought I had spun it fairly fine because I was doing my usual and Navajo plying it to make 3-ply. The finished yarn is a solid worsted weight! My 8 ounce skein has just over 570 yds. I can't imagine trying to spin it finer! Don't get me wrong and think I'm complaining - I couldn't be more pleased with the finished yarn! And it's in a weight I really enjoy knitting with so it absolutely will find it's way on to my needles eventually. All I know is it's going to be made into something really special because it's perfect for next-to-skin wear! So whether or not you're keen on brown, I want to encourage you to try some Polwarth if you get the chance! I don't think you'll be disappointed! (Besides, it can easily be dyed!) Cheers all! 
Posted by Gloria Patre at 12/7/2010 10:07 PM 
Categories: Yarn, Spinning, Fiber
Tags: polwarth wool spinning handspun yarn
Categories: Yarn, Spinning, Fiber
Tags: polwarth wool spinning handspun yarn
Hi Monica...lovely fleece. I have a chocolate brown Polwarth fleece I bought from Treenway Silks last year. It's very soft but I haven't had a chance to spin any yet.
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I adore Polwarth! It has the lovely softness of merino but is so much easier to work with.
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