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Paradise Fibers Blog / Wool and Roving Info

Gotland

More Viking Sheep! The Gotland sheep were established on the Swedish island of Gotland by the Vikings along with Karakul and Romanov sheep that crossed with the native landrace sheep. It created a beautiful and unique sheep known today mostly from the Lord of the Rings films. Let’s talk about the “Lord of the Rings […]
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How do you best Store Fiber?

  I love getting questions about posts or fiber arts, so if you think of any feel free to post them in the comments sections and I will get you an answer, but it might take me a while… I was asked about the best ways to store fiber for long term, and I thought […]
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Cheviot: a Spring Sheep

The sheep that look like bunnies! Cheviot is one of the well-recognized breeds in England recorded to be on the borderlands as early as 1372. The story is that the breed developed from sheep that swam ashore from a shipwrecked Spanish ship after the defeat of the Armada. Developed on the Scottish Border and Northumberland, […]
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Rickwood Farms

  There is a romantic old world quality that shines out when you talk about Rickwood Farms with owner Peggy. A short jaunt from our shop, Rickwood farms is a local fiber producer growing lovely Rambollet and Columbia sheep. On 80 acres with about 60 breeding ewes and market lambs for 4Hers, fiber is her […]
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California Red

Most breeds names are a combination of their development location as well as any unique physical element, the California Red is no different. Developed in 1970 by Dr. Glenn Spurlock who hoped to breed a hair sheep that would have no wool, the California Red is born without wool, only red hair. However as it […]
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New Zealand’s Possum Blends

Saving New Zealand one Possum blend at a time! The common brushtail possum from New Zealand, is an invasive species introduced to in the 1850, and activity  damages New Zealand’s ecology. There is a population of over 30 million and are the number 1 noxious animal, they over populate and actively deteriorate their environment. Possums […]
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Recycled Sari Silk: Yarns and Fiber

Sari sometimes translated to “strip of cloth” is the traditional women’s garment in the Indian subcontinent.  Saris are made with a few different types of fibers, but silk is the most well known.Sari silk is often made of silk filaments that are spun together and then woven into the final garment, most of our recycled […]
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Muskox and Qiviut

Muskox is the most misleading name for creatures in the fiber world. Named “Musk” for the distinctive smell of associated with them; they have no musk glands. Nor are Muskox closely related to oxen or cattle of any kind they are more closely related to sheep and goats. They are the largest Caprinae (species including […]
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Dorper

I have to say that sheep have some of the best names, my favorites including “Dorper” (door-per). Never heard of Dorper before? That may be because some of you might be older than the breed. Developed in the 1950’s Dorper are a hair sheep not often seen in the wool world, while they have a […]
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Mohair – a Unique Goat

There are two types of fiber producing goats, goats that produce Cashmere and Angora goats that produce Mohair. All domestic goats came from a single breed of goat still living today the Bezoar Ibex which produces Cashmere, or the down of the goat, in a near unusable amounts of fiber. Bezoar was domesticated by Neolithic […]
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Cormo

Cormo Sheep: The science experiment that worked brilliantly and paid off well. The name Cormo is from the names of two of the parent breeds, Corriedale and Merino, the breed was developed in Tasmania by Ian Downie. He developed a new breed of sheep strictly by scientific methods and empirical data to develop his ideal […]
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Yak about Yaks!

YAK about YAK! Did you know that Yak’s don’t moo (aka bovine lowing)? They grunt, in fact, the scientific name of Yak is Bos grunniens or “grunting ox” named by Linnaeus in 1766. There are technically two subgenus of Yak domesticated “grunting” and wild “muted” Yak. Yaks are connected to the Pleistocene epoch more than […]
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