Icelandic Wool

I've had some Icelandic roving  from one of these beauties since last fall's Oregon Flock and Fiber Show and finally got around to spinning it.  

It turned out a gorgeous color, but hmmm ... it is a lot more rough and scratchy than I'd hoped!  Icelandic sheep have two layers of fleece - a soft under layer called the thel and a coarser outer layer called the tog.  The roving I bought had the thel and tog mixed together.  

I knitted up a small sample and I think it'd make wonderful outerwear like outer sweaters or caps and probably long lasting socks.  However, I wouldn't want it anywhere that touched my skin!  So I'll be making a trip to a Northwest farm that has thel roving and also some that has a little bit of tog mixed in and give those a try.  I did read that one of the traditional uses of finely spun tog was as embroidery thread, which sounds very intriguing - I'll definitely have to try that!

Happy Creating!  Deborah