Scoured Wensleydale Wool Locks

About the fibre

Staple length 200-300mm. Micron count 30-40

Medium coarse

Uncarded Wensleydale wool locks. For felting, or for special spinning projects with texture. Wensleydale are a longwool breed, meaning these locks are especially long and lustrous.

Combing and carding are essential parts of preparing a fleece for spinning into a uniformly aligned yarn, but these locks have a purpose, too! Excellent for making dolls' hair, curly fur for felted critters, or for adding a natural texture to any felting project. Spinning from these is possible, but not recommended for beginners.

Please note that, since these locks have not been through the same amount of processing most wool goes through, you will definitely find bits of vegetable matter in the wool. These are easily picked out. "Scoured" means that the fleece has been trimmed (skirted) of the dirtiest bits, and the wool has been washed in extremely hot water to remove the vast majority of the sticky lanolin (the natural skin oil produced by sheep) from the raw wool.

Looking for more Wensleydale? Check out our Wensleydale Top

About the breed

Wensleydale is a British breed of sheep named for the Wensleydale region of North Yorkshire, England.

They were originally bred in the nineteenth century by cross-breeding a Dishley Leicester ram with a local sheep that is now extinct.

It is a rare sheep breed and known for its high quality wool.

Amanda Slater from Coventry, England, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons