4.5 Pounds of er... uh.... "New Zealand"

ERRATA (FIRST PARAGRAPH) -- According to the book "In Sheep's Clothing" and further research on 'the internets' there IS a sheep breed called New Zealand Halfbred. I saw pictures, and many are bi-colored like my Paint horse is. I also now understand that different colored fleece off the same sheep CAN have different staple lengths and characteristics. I'm now thinking all this is from the same sheep. (Leaving 1st paragraph as is for my own reasons.)

The Dark Fleece - Supposed to be the same type of sheep, but the dark locks have a significantly shorter staple length. I don't know if different colored sheep, same breed, would vary in staple length based solely on different colors, but that's possible. Anyone happen to know that?

Based on my test amount I processed, this fleece didn't lose a lot of color when scoured. I'm not going to process the rest of it more aggressively, the last thing I want is any of it whitened anymore than necessary.

The "gestalt"



The Dark Fleece









The light fleece









Beautiful color variations in between the dark and light.



My looser, more lofty-spun yarn and test swatch