Gradient yarn from Natural colored wool

One of the nice things about sheep displaying the Katmoget (Kats) pattern is you get a small amount of wool that is darker than the main body.  Kats have dark wool on their lower body - ie the belly, neck and down the legs, and it has a natural gradient.

See the darker streak of wool down Milan's neck, a little bit you can see peeking out from her belly and back legs.  She is a fawn katmoget.

Unfortunately, this wool is usually skirted off for showing or selling a fleece as it can be dirty, maybe a little shorter, full of hay as the neck isn't covered by the coats.  Generally undesirable for a show/sale fleece.

Some kats have larger amounts darker wool extending a little further up the sides which is nice if you are interested in a mix of color.

I like to make gradient yarns with katmoget fleeces.  Usually there is only enough darker wool for one skein, the balance of the skeins are the main color, either fawn or grey.  I thought I would show how I do it.

Here is washed neck wool with nice concentration of dark and light fiber which I will be flick carding into locks to sort and spin

I carded the wool and you see here an assortment of shades unsorted

Sorted them to three shades, dark, medium and light.

Set the scale to zero to weigh each so I can split in half

Weigh the entire shade

Here is the 1/2 of the medium shade

Then start to spin the three groups into singles from light to dark.  As I am spinning my bowl of locks, I visually pull out the next level of shading from the bowl to keep the gradient really gentle and subtle.

A single of gradient wool

2 ply both gradient singles together for the final product