I have been asked many times over the years what my favorite wool is in regards to needle felting. I had mainly used Romney wool since that is the breed of sheep we own, so I didn’t feel like I really knew that answer. We have expanded our flock to Wensleydale and Blue Faced Leicester but I still didn’t feel like I had an honest answer to that question. I have decided to felt my way through the sheep breeds using wool from a particular breed to needle felt a sculpture of that breed of sheep. I hope to gain experience with different types of wool so that I can better answer your questions. On this adventure I am learning all about each breed and passing that on to you as well.

Jacob Sheep

First a vocabulary lesson. 🙂

Piebald– having irregular patches of two colors, typically black and white
Polycerate– is a term used to describe animals with more than two horns.

Jacobs are small, polycerate, piebald sheep. Ewes weigh 80–120 pounds, and rams 120–180 pounds. The sheep are mostly white with colored spots or patches. The picturesque horns on Jacobs is what attracts the most attention. They can have two, four or even six horns. The horns grow in a variety of directions making each Jacob sheep different and unique. Both males and females are horned, but the horns on the ewe are always shorter and more delicate than the rams’ horns.

Learning about Jacob sheep has been quite different from the previous three breeds that I have felted. They are not only unique in how they look but they are also different in that the Jacob sheep in North America have not undergone improved breeding and out crossing to satisfy the commercial marketplace. Jacobs are a British breed imported to the United States in the past several decades. The name Jacob comes from Old Testament history of the dealings between Jacob and his father-in-law Laban. Jacob’s striving to achieve spotted sheep and goats is thought to be the earliest record of selective breeding.

And now finally the most important part, the fleece. 🙂 The breed produces a medium fleece that is light and open, with a staple length of 3 to 7 inches. Typical fleeces will weigh only three or four pounds, and may vary quite a bit in coloring, crimp, and fineness. Jacobs have one of the widest ranges of acceptable fiber qualities of any kind of sheep. Unlike most other medium wool breeds, quality of the fleece has been a major selection factor in the recent history of the Jacob breed.

Jacob breeders take great delight in the personalities of their animals; some believe that the lack of breeding improvement is responsible for preserving a more goat-like curiosity and agility. They bear one or two lambs in the spring, and lambing is typically very easy. I found this interesting: Horn growth begins immediately and the ram lambs will be born with horn buds already poking through the wool.

Thanks to Oklahoma state animal science department, Jacob Sheep Breeders Association, The Livestock Conservancy, and The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook for information on Jacob sheep.

Needle Felting with Jacob Wool

I was excited to try felting with Jacob wool and creating a unique sculpture. I had heard of others using Jacob wool for their felting projects, so I anticipated a pleasurable experience. I had purchased white, gray and black Jacob wool and began felting with the white. Right away I noticed it was course and the needle didn’t pull it in very well, I tried different sizes of needles and found size 36 worked the best. It was felting but taking longer than I was used to. Working the fine details on the face about drove me crazy. When it came time to add some black I found that it was finer than the white, but had course hairs throughout. Very course hairs, darker and completely unfeltable. It also had long white course hairs here and there in the black roving. Thankfully I only needed this color for the spots.

I ended up picking out all the course hairs before felting it. It felted to be quite solid in the end, but took considerably longer and I was physically tired from all the extra poking it required. I mentioned my frustration with felting this wool in our Feltalong group on Facebook and someone mentioned that their Jacob wool was felting ok, it was course, but she wasn’t frustrated. I know from experience, felting wool from my own sheep, that fleece can vary from animal to animal, so I took that into account. I did a little research and found that Jacobs have the widest range of wool qualities of any kind of sheep. I hope to try Jacob wool again in the future from a different source and find out if it felts differently. What I learned from this is, Jacob wool might be best purchased in person where you are able to feel the roving and check for feltablity.

I am going to give this Jacob wool a felting score of 3 on a scale of 1 to 10. Ten being the best. Let me know if you have a great source for good quality Jacob wool, I would love to give it a second chance! I am spinning the remainder of my Jacob wool and enjoying that experience. 🙂

Thank you to Ruby Peak Farms for the beautiful pictures of their flock of Jacob Sheep!

My needle felted Jacob sheep made out of Jacob wool is available for purchase here.

Find the posts on our other Felt Alongs here.

Want to learn more about needle felting? Find more information, tips and tutorials here.

Icelandic – 6
Jacob – 3
Blue Faced Leicester – 6
Corriedale – 7
Southdown – 7

Learn to Needle Felt the Easy Way!

I’m Teresa Perleberg

a needle felting sculpture artist, raising a flock of sheep and teaching others how to needle felt as well as sharing my farm experiences.

~Sheep, wool, farm-life, spinning, dyeing, knitting is what I love.

My mission? To help others learn to needle felt the easy way.

Let me show you how you can easily create beautiful sculptures

by using the correct supplies and techniques

I have helped over 10,000 learn how to needle felt through my needle felting kits and even more who have received personal instruction from me through my Online Needle Felting Academy.

Now it’s your turn! I would love to help you get started today!

Join the Bear Creek Needle Felting Academy today!

The Bear Creek felting Story

Vertical Wool Business

5 Comments

Dawn Driskill on February 12, 2022 at 2:02 pm

Hello, I would like to let you & your subscribers know that if you order Shetland wool from the Shetland Islands, you may not get the soft Shetland wool that you want. Any wool from any breed of sheep on Shetland is labeled “Shetland wool”. I own Shetlands & at a fiber festival I happened to feel a skein of wool labeled “Shetland” & it was awful, almost wiry. I have single coated & dual & all are, of course, the fine fleeced Shetlands of the standard & are soft, even if diverse. I asked about it & the owner of the booth assured me that it was Shetland, even though I knew that it wasn’t. I began to do some research & found out that the breeders from Shetland had the right to put the name on the exported wool, & it didn’t matter what the breed was. Unfortunately that information isn’t well known.
Thank you for all of your information ❤️ Dawn
- Teresa Perleberg on February 12, 2022 at 3:52 pm
  
  Thank you Dawn!
Laurie Bruckmann on August 8, 2020 at 6:44 pm

I had a small flock (20) of Jacobs at one time and found them to be flighty and hard to work with . They had been to me by someone who couldn’t sell them. Perhaps they were traumatized.This was in Vermont, where I believe the first imports were made by Tony Turner.
Just some fun info. I am thrilled to join. Thank you!
Wren on January 13, 2020 at 2:23 pm

I just got started into needle felting, and am on the cusp of getting our own sheep, finally. Your blog is like the most wonderfully, strangely-appropriate thing I’ve found on the subject, haha! We were thinking about Jacob sheep, as I love the fact that they’re not “improved,” and we want to eventually breed our own local landrace. Thanks for the tips on working with their wool–I’ll probably be up to my ears in it, once we get our flock! I’m curious to see the variation in their wool types, after reading through your experiences.

Of course now, I’ve got to read through the rest of the breed posts.
Laquapics on July 19, 2018 at 3:05 am

i only have merino wool available at the moment, until my kits arrive but at the moment i feel that the merino just does not stop having fuzzies, it does make great wet wool felting, nice and smooth and soft, but i do not even know if i have the right needles, they do not have anynumbers on them and just three barbs on the needle point. so am going to wait until my kits arrive then get stuck into making animals