This is a good fleece, though a bit heavy on the outer coat. I can't find the histograms from the last batch of sampling that I did on the rams with intact rib samples and also samples of the outer and inner coats. If I remember correctly, it was around 30 micron intact staple and 19.8 or 20.1 micron inner. Somewhere in that range. I like this style of fleece for several reasons.
1) They outercoat sheds moisture so the sheep don't produce the excess lanolin to waterproof themselves. The innercoat locks in warmth with it's highly insulative qualities. Because of that, it protects my ewes better in particularly nasty weather and they maintain condition out on the hill better than the single and intermediate fleeced ewes in my flock. It also protects the inner coat from sunbleaching, so jet black stays jet black and moorit stays moorit. It's ready to spin from the lock right off the sheep.
2) The crimp structure and handle are more like cashmere. Organized crimp definitely has it's place in the industry, but this is something extraordinary. The handle of the inner coat is something unique to other dual-coated fibers like cashmere, quiviut or camel down. It is very fine, but doesn't have the cottoney-stickiness that commercial finewools have, or the slippery-dryness of alpaca. It has much loft, but without being spongey.
3) It's a genetic goldmine. This has the quality of wild fibers without (as much of) the wildness.

0 comments:
Post a Comment