Description
The Jacob sheep are smartly patched and spotted sheep with black wool and white wool – and a bit of grey in some of them and where the black and white get mixed up. This colour is made by separating the white and a little grey from the darker wool. There are thus different coloured fibres in the yarn, which gives it depth of texture and a feel of life. The yarn is light, something like the Shetland oatmeal but instead of the delicate brown of the Shetland, this colour reminds us of the rye flour we grow and mill here, having hint of grey and cream.
Jacob sheep have a fairly fine wool with a good staple length. As a result, the wool need not be spun so tightly. This gives it a very comfortable feel when knitting. Though the wool is more relaxed than the Shetland wool, the individual fibres are slightly thicker.
We have this colour batch in DK as well as Aran.
We have found the Aran yarns are good for a beginner as they knit up quickly and are forgiving of repeated unpicking! They are also excellent for textured knitting with cables, ribs and simple textures such as moss stitch.
We also have this thickness of wool in Chocolate Black from the Hebrideans, Cream from the Dorset Downs, moorit, which is a rich brown from Shetlands and two different greys from the Jacob sheep. If you want to work with colours, there are therefore plenty of combinations available to you which we think are particularly good for simple stripy patterns.
