Over the past few years we have added some gorgeous East Friesian sheep to our little family. I had not worked with their wool before so decided to do a little write up about it. This is our Merlin, he donated his fleece for my project. He has two brothers, Wool-i-am and Wicker. read more…
Merlin’s wool averaged 4 inch long locks that were soft soft soft. This was his very first shearing ever.
There is not much lanolin in this wool so washing was easy. The wool turned out a beautiful white. Our washing tips can be found here.
Since I only kept a little of his fleece for myself I decided to use my new wool combs. They haven’t seen much use! The wool is pretty. Carders would work fine or one could just spin it right from the locks/fleece. That is usually what I do-mainly because I am lazy.
I spun up a single ply yarn. It is soft and reminds me very much of Corriedale wool. There is a little ‘bounce’ to it. Very easy to spin into any weight. It wanted to spin into a light weight yarn so I let it ‘take the wheel.’ ha!
We’ll have a part two soon with Raven’s fleece. She is a black East Friesian sheep. In the meantime we hope you will try this beautiful wool! We have plenty here so if you don’t see it on our website please send us an email. We’ll get you set to go! Smooches from Merlin!
