Friend. Good.

Was there ever a more poignant movie scene about new friendship than the one between Peter Boyle and Gene Hackman in "Young Frankenstein?"  Probably.  But those other scenes manipulate kittens, flowers and butterflies, crying children, puppies and rainbows and so don't elicit the same tender feelings from me.

It's always great to be encouraged by a friend when you're learning something new.  It doesn't matter whether they are a new friend or someone you've been talking to for years.  Outside input and encouragement makes a difference.

The Mistress of Shadowmanor is one of those cool friends who knows how to make Bridge Mix out of garlic cloves and common crickets and sews her children's Halloween costumes.  If you don't already know about her blog, you should.

The delightful thing about her is -- well one of the things -- is that she's much more conscientious about the job of blogging than most and she will find something interesting for you to mull over almost every day.  Her encouragement and pointing me to tutorials that were actually helpful is directly responsible for the felted eyeball pictures today.

Jumping from present to past, I have pictures of sheep left over from the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival that I haven't posted because I've not had the time to study all the breeds of sheep.

I'm already familiar with the Jacob, though, and this fellow was one of the friendliest rams I've ever met.  He made me question the rumor that Jacob Sheep are mean, tempermental spawn from hell and only suitable for clearing brush and weeds in unpopulated areas. One of the handlers said that Jacobs have personalities and so frighten farmers accustomed to dealing with walking slabs of meat.

I don't need to crack any books on this particular breed. I first learned about Jacob sheep with their 4 to 6 horns (on both male and female) and spotted fleeces not long after I started spinning.  I had been buying roving and top from dealers on Ebay and decided to take the next step with a whole fleece.

I dealt with some pretty dirty and nasty things that arrived in the mail.  One fleece hadn't been skirted at all and was full of dung tags and another -- a merino fleece -- required three washings before it was clean enough to spin.  But of all the fleeces, I would buy a Jacob again in a heartbeat.  If it is well skirted (the four arm-pit areas, the neck, belly and the briches area should be removed) it washes easily and dries quickly and on a sunny day you can have fiber to spin by nightfall.

The white wool has some long guard hairs, but they're obvious and easy to pull out when carding or combing.  The hard-wearing white wool is lusterous and long with a wave and reminds me of a shorter, softer Mohair.  It makes excellent worsted and I have warped a rigid-heddle loom using only single-ply white jacob.  The brown and black wools are spongey, dense and soft, and perfect for spinning woolen.

Loading a hand card with light on one side and dark on the other  makes it possible to spin a variegated yarn that takes dye well and produces a lusterous intense single. While I wouldn't want to wear the white close to delicate skin and the dark isn't merino, the wool is still wearable as hats and mittens and maybe even socks.  (Oh look what I just did.  Now a Jacob Sock Experiment is going to haunt me until I buy a fleece.  :::sigh:::)

Jacob fleeces are pricey because they are easy to clean, a joy to spin and create variegated yarns that dye very well. They are worth every penny.