This title leaves the focus of this blog post wide open, but the intent is to share some of the steps in getting the yarn ready to sell. Never mind the part about raising the sheep, shearing the sheep, sorting the fleece, shipping the fleece, scouring, carding, and spinning. I’m starting with the stage where I get the yarn back from the mill. I divided my 2021 Jacob fiber into two batches. The first batch went to the Valley Oak Wool & Fiber Mill in Woodland and the second to Mendocino Wool & Fiber in Ukiah. The Valley Oak yarn has been back for awhile and is on my website here.

This is the yarn I got a couple of weeks ago from Mendocino. When I skirt and sort fleeces I first separate the coarser britch wool from the rest of the fleece. This is fiber that grows on the back leg of the Jacob sheep and it needs to be removed to keep the bulk of the fleece feeling soft and not scratchy. (More about this later.) Then I sort for color. In this case you can see the white and the black and two grays. Gray is mostly a mix of white and black fiber that isn’t realistic to sort. The lighter gray happens to be the britch wool that I don’t sort for color—the black and white mix together in whatever proportion I sorted out. The darker gray on the left is the blend of white and black fibers from the main part of the fleece.

Also notice that there are cones and skeins for each color. This is the exact same yarn, just different “packaging”.

When I get the yarn back my first step is to measure the yarn. Using a yarn gauge (for sale here) allows me to compare this yarn to other yarns and to make a judgement about sett (ends per inch) for weaving or about needle size if I was planning to knit with it. The yarn on the cone measures 17 wpi.

However the yarn in the skeins measures 15 wpi. How can this be? It’s the SAME yarn. It makes sense when you see how tightly the cones are wound. The yarn in the skeins has had a chance to relax and bloom a bit.

What about this one at 12 wpi? It’s also the SAME yarn. The difference is that it has been soaked in water and then air dried. The yarn blooms even more. The significance of this is that the end user needs to know about the final state of the yarn. If the user makes a project (weave, knit, crochet) based on the measurement of the coned yarn the finished piece will likely be more dense than anticipated. The yarn will bloom when the project is washed. When customers buy yarn in a regular yarn store they expect that yarn to be in its final state and they don’t plan to wash the yarn before using it. I have to choose how to sell this yarn. In this case I soaked and then dried the yarn before re-skeining and labeling it. The customer can be confident that the yarn is ready to use.

The three colors of the yarn are very similar in size, but I went through this process anyway. The black yarn on the cone measured 17 wpi.

Skeined but not washed—15 wpi.

Washed—12 wpi.

This is the britch wool. You can see some of the hairier fibers. This yarn is great for rugs, bags, table runners and placemats, and even blankets. It’s just not as good as the other yarn for next to the skin wear. This one measure 15 wpi for the coned yarn.

The washed britch wool measures 13 wpi.

This and the one below are the final product photos for the website.

You can find this yarn on the website or in person at the shop (hours are here).

I should share some projects from this yarn, but that will have to be the topic of another post.