Icelandic (Natanya)

This one was a little bit of an impulse buy, but I've had a lot of fun with it. Heritage/primitive breeds like Icelandics are multi-coated (if you've ever had a really floofy cat or dog, it's like that) where they'll have a more sleek and hair-y top coat and a downy undercoat that's basically a big cloud. Some people don't separate the coats and just process them all together (this is called lopi yarn) and it's got its pros and cons: it has the strength of the top coat and loft of the undercoat, but it's also got the scratchiness of the top coat and weaness of the undercoat. It's not next-to-skin soft, definitely.

I've separated the coats myself, which was a super fun process--there's something ridiculously satisfying about pulling them apart, I even made my parents try it and you can see it on people's faces when they feel the fibers pull apart--and I'll probably spin the tog for a warp and the thel I'm spinning right now to dye with woad (imported as a powder, since it's a noxious weed in my region) and nålbind a hat for a friend's historic garb. So far I've carded it into rolags, and I don't know if I'm really bad at carding, making rolags, or just don't like rolags, but I'll probably stick to pulling it off as roving in the future.