Grey Jacob

I don't need to blog about this breeds characteristics because I have already done that when I wrote about the Black Jacob that I spun up for the breed sampler.  The information about the breed can be found in this post here.

I decided to use Grey Jacob to make the centre piece of my British Breeds Project, a piece that would explain simply what all the sample pieces represent.  I also have a decent amount of Jacob fleece in my stash and therefore at my disposal.

I decided to use the mixed colour fleece from two different Jacob Fleece that were from the same flock of sheep and that I acquired way back in 2014 from a farmer friend of an ex-colleague and friend.  These were from Fleece No.2 and Fleece No.16.

From Fleece No.2 there was 276g of washed mixed colour fleece and this gave me 135g of fluff after combing and blending to even out the colour.  Fleece No.16 there was 187g of mixed colour fleece and this gave me 138g after combing.  Because of the difference in the shades I separated it out into the darkest and lightest of fibres and blended these together to even out the colours as much as possible.

These are the handcombed nests from both fleece, sorted into darkest and lightest shades.

Even after blending there was still a slight difference in the nests so I spun them as a lighter yarn and a darker yarn.  There is not a great difference of shade but its enough to be noticeable if you were to work them both on the same project.

My finished yarn is of medium quality to the touch of the hand and is so much nicer than the black Jacob sample.  Both skeins spun as sport weight and one is 135g/320m and the other is 132g/345m.  My knitted piece for the project only took 30g/79m so I have plenty left to do whatever with.