Opulent raglan - fleece to finished!

I was lucky enough to meet sheep from the same zwartbles flock that this fleece came from.

I enjoyed using my Haldane Lewis for this one.

I combed the fleece rather than carding it, and spun worsted. The preparation should have taken out the shorter fibres, just leaving the best and longest fibres, all arranged parallel.

I didn't take out the sun-bleached tips, so the overall result is more of a dark chocolate rather than black.

I'm very happy with the jumper. The only thing I am a little unsure about is that it's very heavy. I think this is partly due to a tight gauge. My swatch was significantly smaller than it should have been, and rather than go with bigger needles, I simply went up a pattern size. This means I've packed in many more stitches than there should have been.

This makes it very warm!

Pattern is Interweave's Opulent Raglan. The photos in the montage above are all on Flickr.