A Breed Apart: Ancient Arts and Heritage Wool

The market is saturated with handdyers (pun intended), and superwash Merino base yarns seem to dominate. Not so with Caroline Sommerfeld’s Ancient Arts Yarns. Of course, Sommerfeld does dye beautiful hanks of superwash Merino, but her line also includes heritage-breed and breed-specific fibers. It’s all part of the grand plan, says Sommerfeld, who built an established business with more “mainstream” yarns, as she calls them.

Sommerfeld became fascinated with different breeds of wool after she learned to spin. “It was a chance to learn about wool and other fibers from the ground up and to experiment in a way one cannot with a commercial yarn,” she observes. Years ago, finding breed-specific yarns meant talking to farmers. From them and her own spinning, Sommerfeld learned “how heritage sheep are a part of the community who raise them.” She also came to understand the different characteristics of breeds and how those characteristics relate to a yarn’s performance. She soon learned to choose wools that were especially suited to the projects she wanted to knit. Once she began to dye yarns, she became fascinated with each type of wool’s unique character in and out of the dyepot.

Special Yarns from Flocks Near and Far

Sommerfeld didn’t have to look far to find delicious breed-specific wool to offer. Ancient Arts Heritage is made from wool sourced locally in Alberta, Canada, from two separate flocks of sheep. One is a cross of Finn and Gotland, which produces a lustrous long wool with loft, sheen and drape that dyes beautifully. The other flock consists of Rambouillet sheep, known for their soft, warm wool. Combining the two produces a yarn with loft and softness while preserving the sheen, durability, and drape of the Gotland wool.

The Butte Meadow Top by Faina Goberstein, knitted in Ancient Arts Yarns Herlig Dk. Photo by Gale Zucker

Ancient Arts also produces Herlig DK using Norwegian wool, which is grown by sheep descended from those bred by Vikings! The breed is so old and so closely intertwined with local culture that it doesn’t have a formal name. “When I asked the name of the breed, I was told, ‘They are sheep.’ When pressed, they are called Norwegian sheep, white sheep, or sometimes Old Norwegian sheep.” With the blessing of the Viking Norway cooperative that produces this wool, Ancient Arts refers to the fiber as Viking Norway Wool. “What is more important to the people who work with the wool is how it is processed,” Caroline adds. “They raise their sheep on the most amazing hills, mountains, and fjords, and carefully shear, grade, and process it.” A blend of 50% Viking Norway wool and 50% Merino, Herlig DK is perfect for outdoor items such as mittens, cowls, and sweaters, with a little “stick” that makes it ideal for colorwork. As she worked with Herlig DK, Sommerfeld saw how the wool takes dye a little differently than other breeds. Cooler tones seem to work best with the yarn’s unique qualities, she has found.

Manx Loaghtan sheep (and their spectacular horns) were once nearly extinct. Ancient Arts Yarn uses their chocolate brown wool in their Lascaux yarn. Photo at left by Alice Underwood, courtesy of Ancient Arts Yarn; photo at right by Ancient Arts Yarn

One of Ancient Arts’ signature yarns, Lascaux, started as an opportunity to use wool from the Manx Loaghtan breed. Manx Loaghtan sheep are native to the Isle of Man, a small island in the Irish Sea between the United Kingdom and Ireland. The multi-horned sheep have made a recovery from the mid-1950s, when less than 50 animals remained, but are still considered “at risk” by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust. Sommerfeld decided to use the wool as the basis for an unusual yarn, blending the warm chocolate brown Manx Loaghtan wool with natural white Punta Arenas wool from Chile to create a light brown yarn. When dyed, the heathered base gives Lascaux richness and depth.

Dreaming Up New Yarns

The knitting world has reacted enthusiastically to Ancient Arts’ breed-specific offerings, and Sommerfeld is already planning more. While it can be challenging to source single-breed and heritage yarns—and to find local mills to spin them—increasing market demand has created more opportunities to use local wool.

Holding a skein of Revival in your hands, you'd never know that it’s a blend of reclaimed fibers. Photo courtesy of Ancient Arts Yarn

Besides rare-breed wool, Ancient Arts offers several other surprising and sustainable yarns. Picking up a slightly lustrous, firmly twisted skein of Revival, you would never know that it’s spun from reclaimed fiber that would be considered waste in the carding process. A soft and silky yarn called Nettle Soft blends Merino with low-water, pesticide-free, perennial common stinging nettle (which doesn’t sting after processing!). The resulting yarn has the best qualities of a linen blend with less environmental impact.

Creating a new base yarn can take up to two years, including time to knit up a potential new yarn and see how it wears, but Sommerfeld is committed to continue developing heritage sheep wool, noting, “It is all too easy in today’s world to wipe out diversity, and we lose so much when we do so.”