Myrrhwood Farm handspun wool yarns,
Border Leicester, Icelandic, and CVM cross sheep.
We specialize in Border Leicester, CVM, Border Leicester cross, and purebred Icelandic sheep. We produce beautiful handspun wool yarns. We offer Andalusian horses and stud breeding.We also produce a wonderful line of handmade soap using only the finest essential oils available.
The second breed we raise are Border Leicesters. They are a British breed that gives us the best long locky wool you can imagine. Their fleece is often used by doll makers as hair for their dolls or for santa dolls. It can be very wavy, or it can grow in long spiral curls. Often it grows to 10-12 inches, although it does not come in as many colors as the Icelandic it does come in white, black, and the most beautiful silver gray. They are not as hardy as the Icelandics but are also quite well suited for our area and also do very well on grass. A wonderful characteristic of both breeds is they do not have any wool on their legs which makes shearing easy and is great when it snows as they do not get snow caked on their leg and belly wool. We do cover some of our Border Leicesters in order to keep their fleeces as free from vegetable matter as possible. In this way Beth can handspin yarn directly from the washed fleece to create a beautiful yarn with long curls intertwined in the yarn.
The third breed of sheep we raise is a very rare one, the CVM or California Variegated Mutant. This breed has roots to the Romney and Ramboulet, its white cousin is the Romaldale. The fleece from these sheep is so soft and the handspun yarn has so much natural spring that Beth is knitting socks with it from handspun singles. They also come in wonderful natural colors of brown, gray, badger face and black. The other nice thing about them is they do not fade as they age but rather they get darker from when they are born to their third or fourth year. This means that the black is jet black without any gray in it, just beautiful. We have now also crossed the Border Leicester with the CVM and have come up with a wonderful cross breed. The addition of the Border Leicester gives high bred vigor to the offspring. They are big and very strong with a large fleece with a lot of character.
All of our sheep are part of our family and we pride ourselves on making sure they have the best care we can give them. We have a small farm with approximately 5 acres of pasture that in a good year will graze our sheep for up to 6 months. We are in the process of clearing another 3 acres of woods in order to give the sheep some much needed shade in the heat and humidity of the summer. During the winter we only feed the best alfalfa hay available and a corn ration I have designed myself for extra protein for the pregnant ewes.
Both my wife and myself are handspinners we each have a spinning wheel from which we spin and market our handspun wool yarns. All our handspun yarn comes from the wool of our flock and anyone can use it just as they would any millspun yarn that they purchase. We strive to produce the best handspun yarn and will only sell the best. Since we use it ourselves for knitting, weaving, crocheting, and felting we know how exacting our fellow fiber artists are and if we wouldn't use it, then we don't expect our customers to use it.
We hope you enjoy browsing through our site and we hope you enjoy looking at the handspun yarns, roving, sock yarns, and woolen items we produce from the wonderful gift our sheep give us.
Please look for us at the farmers markets listed to the left. We usually have most everything that is available on our website at these markets. So come and see us and help support the small farmer. As we add more markets we will post them.
Florence Mill Farmers Market
Omaha Nebraska
June 6 - August 15
11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Downtown Columbus Nebraska
June 6 - August 15
7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Please request permission if you wish to use any
of the items on this web site. Thank you.
2430 Road 8
Clarkson, Nebraska 68629
(402) 892-9852
e-mail: mfsyarns@msn.com
