New colourways, a freshly dyed blend and much more !

 

Romanov Sheep With Quadruplets 

Happy Friday ! 

It’s always super hectic..well, even more busy and hectic as usual I should say, because Friday is reserved to get everything organised on the shop with the freshly dyed tops and new products. And oh wow are there a lot of new products for you to feast your eyes on ! 

Apart from a re stock of some colours on cashmere fling and cashmerino silk tops, there is a new product line of merino tops in solid colours. I have been asked many times to offer some solid dyed merino tops for spinning and feating, so here they are! I will be offering more colours as time goes by, but I started off with the most requested: Fluro colours, deep dark blackest of black, silvers, purples and reds!

Also Niddy noddies are back in stock: yay! You can find them in the Yarn Tool section!

Do you ever find yourself totally in love with a new colour? Mine at the moment is a fabulous moss, lime, greens colour which is hard to define. These mossy and lime greens combine so well with browns! I think they’re my favourite new colourways at the moment. Maybe it’s because I am craving “calm”…who knows.lol

oh, and before I forget: it’s March and that means a new 20th anniversary celebration Sale product with 20% off ! This month it’s the awesome Flower Power. These merino/alpaca tops with their heathered look are amazing to spin, soft and fabulous to felt with as well !

Now on with info about this amazing rare sheep breed : 

Romanov sheep sourced from Ukraine ! As you can imagine it has taken quite a bit of doing to get my hands on this fibre to make this very special blend but it is so worth it. Not only to handle this fibre blend but also to support the small farms who are lovingly raising and caring for these animals in the middle of harsh war time conditions.

The Romanov Sheep originally hail from the Upper Volga area of Russia and were named after a town in the region. The breed first came to prominence in the 18th century.  Mature male rams reach up to 80kgs in weight, with ewes averaging 40-50kgs. 

The Romanov sheep are a very early maturing breed, the Romanov can reach full sexual maturity as early as 3-4 months old! 

They can also breed at any time of the year and ewes are very prolific, sometimes having up to six lambs per birth. Multiple births are extremely common in this short-tailed breed.  

They are very hardy and very strong and are well adapted to harsh cold climates. They are generally black in colour when born, though this changes to grey as they mature. Their face and legs are usually black in colour as well, with large white markings common on the top of their heads. 

Their wool is famed for being very strong and resourceful and is double-coated. Their undercoat is about 16-22 microns and their outercoat is 40-150 microns. 

The average fleece shorn from a Romanov weighs 4.5kgs in total. 

From sourcing to dehairing and blending it took me about two years for me to get this blend to you. Lot sof sourcing, lots of forms and administrative rules and regulations !  And, The wool needs a lot of creativity in preparation! 

Unlike most double coated breeds where the outercoat is significantly longer than the undercoat, the Romanov’s two coats are of similar length. This complicates the job of separating the coarse fibres from the fine undercoat! The right set of wool combs have done the trick but it takes a loooooong time. 

 You may know I love to dye over a base that is grey or brown: it makes the dye so much more interesting and deep. The colour of the Romanov is grey and absolutely amazing to dye and spin There are no guard hairs in the blend at all and because I have blended it with Silk, Cashmere, Angora and the softness is out of this world. I wanted to incorporate a bit of that shine and shimmer that you see when a fresh coat of snow has fallen and the sun shines on it, so I added mulberry silk for that lustre and shine effect. As you can imagine I only have a very limited amount available: some natural and some dyed. 

Here are tonight’s exciting new offers !

 

Romanov Sheep Blend Tops  

Romanov Sheep, Mulberry Silk, Cashmere, Angora Bunny  

100+ gram tops

You can find all the new colourways on the IxCHeL shop here: https://ixchel.com.au/products/romanov-tops

IxCHeL club sign ups for the 2nd quarter 2024

(APRIL, May and June)  are open !

If you want to receive a fibre, yarn or batt club  surprise parcel every month then join the IXCHEL art journey clubs 2nd quarter now. 
Numbers are strictly limited !

Visit the IxCHeL shop here for all the details: https://ixchel.com.au/collections/clubs

Note to all International club members: All international club parcels are  shipped with tracking.   There is an option of having all three of your clubs shipped together to save on shipping cost:  Just ask me for a postage quote  

Better get back to the dye pots! Something very special is brewing for next weeks shop update and the clubs are getting their dyebath as well ! I will post teaser photos of the March clubs early next week so keep an eye out on the IxCHeL posts on Instagram, threads and Facebook.

Have a fun weekend !!! 

Any questions? Any custom orders for yarn or dyeing fibre? : Please don’t hesitate to ask! Always happy to enable.

To shop the new update and all things new on the IxCHeL website click here: https://ixchel.com.au/collections/whats-new

To see what I am up to on a day to day bases, please follow me on Instagram where I am @ixchelbunny 

 RABBIT ON !

 ((hugs))

 Charly