#soay

First ever Kazoo fluff! He's just starting to roo, and unlike Kratos, whose wool tends to come off in larger sections, it's only pulling in bitty tufts.

I swear to ram I was not going to go here - yet.

"Do all the normal, easy to find, consistent wool breeds," says I (in my Midwestern whine) - but no.

NO!

We are going to Scotland!

(Because this Tik Tok creator said the magic words, essentially forcing me to info dump to my fibery soc-med accts)

There is an archipelago off Scotland's western shores collectively called St Kilda with which I became obsessed after purchasing an antique spinning wheel from a local family with a story about a someone coming over from Glasgow. This ⬇️ antique wheel to be precise. Note the # of spokes.

Fourteen - 14 spokes - so then, some bludger on Ravelry said "Oh! Cool! Fourteen spokes means it's a St Kilda wheel (blah, blah, blah) lucky number 14 (blah, blah) photo of woman and spinning wheel."

And just like that, I spent two years researching a collection of Outer Hebrides islands and the ecology there of, including:

Soay sheep. (See, we got there)

A decade ago, all this was a mystery outside of Scotland - but in the years since my obsession peaked, there have been many well researched articles written about the time and place that made Soay an ancient breed to include on your breed study journey.

One of the two breeds particular to the isles of St Kilda - the Soay is a naturally shedding, short tailed, dual purpose breed. Specialty herds have been seeded off the islands that produced their rough, hearty genetics, and for this reason you can purchase Soay fiber for spinning.

That fiber is as diverse as the sheep from which it is pucked or rooed as it is called. Could be fine enough for a camisole or hard enough for cordage ties. Really. Who knows?

The staple is between 2 & 4 inches (5-10cm) and -when a raw fleece is carded- the mixed lengths make a stable yarn where the longer fibers capture the shorter. The gathered fleece needs to be evaluated tuft by tuft (if you are lucky enough to get your hands on feral Soay) or you can go to Etsy where the North American Soay hang out.

The fiber of Soay can be ultra fine or medium micro or kemp - it's all luck of the wildish genetics draw. And, although the wool dyes well, you will usually see it left natural because the range of browns are phenomenal.

8th December 1987: The Scottish Land Court ordered the English owner of the Hebridean Island of Soay to sell more than half the island to a crofter who had lived there for more than 41 years.

Born in 1919, Joseph "Tex" Geddes - typically, he claimed he was given his nickname by a Red Indian fellow commando.

By his own account, he was born in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, and taken to Canada by his father when he was two, following a trivial altercation with the police. Others maintain he was raised by an aunt, the youngest of three fighting brothers, in Easter Ross, and never went to Canada in his life. His neighbours in nearby Skye believed that he hailed from Australia.

In the book Hebridean Sharker Tex Geddes describes his exploits during the 1950s as a hunter of basking sharks in the waters of the Minch, between the Inner and Outer Hebrides. Using an adapted whaling harpoon, he and his crew stalked these huge fish often in perilous conditions, the liver of which is a valuable source of oil.

Always a maverick, before World War Two Geddes had been a boxer and a rumrunner to Newfoundland. During the war he established a reputation as an expert knife-thrower and bayonet fencer and served in the Special Forces with fellow hebridean Gavin Maxwell (author of Ring of Bright Water), and was a central character in Maxwell's Harpoon at a Venture

He combined the hazardous pursuit of sharks with crewing the local lifeboat, ring-net fishing, lobstering, deer-stalking and salmon poaching.

Thesubject of previous posts, historian of Gaelic culture Margaret Fay Shaw said of him: "Tex was a great storyteller and important as such. He was also immensely kind, and had that hunger for life and fun that is essential if you are to make a go of living in these islands. The Hebrides needs more people like Tex Geddes. So does the world

He went on to purchase the tiny island of Soay, where he lived with his wife Jeanne, Geddes continued fishing basking sharks, selling unprocessed livers rather than processed oil to Glasgow.While much of the remaining population of the island evacuated to Mull in 1953, Geddes and his family remained. Geddes protested at the lack of emergency telephone services and with the threat of loss of postal service to the remaining inhabitants of the island, he asked people to send him registered letters and packages. As a result the service was kept with post arriving once a month.

Today the island has a population of three, and the post arrives once a month. The population peaked at 158 in 1851, following eviction of crofters from Skye in the Clearances.

Soay lamb in May 2023. Photo by Raymond JC Cannon St Kilda is an isolated archipelago situated about 40 miles west of the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. The three main islands, of which the largest is Hirta, are the remains of an ancient volcano which blew its top about 55 million years ago. The other main islands are Soay and Boreray. Topographic map of the archipelago of St Kilda by Eric Gaba,…