Ile de France

I recently bought some Ile de France fleece through a Ravelry group - Canadian fibre/yarn market - that promotes Canadian grown and processed fibre.

It's a huge bag of 2 fleeces and I thought I should do up a sample and see what it is like to spin and dye.
I removed 444 grams from the top of the bag as right now I don't have a place to spread it out to skirt until the weather warms up in spring so I wasn't too picky about what I chose.

Staple length of my sample was just under 3". Some veg matter.

After scouring I was left with 200 gr.

I divided it into 5 groups of 40 grams and teased it apart, then drum carded into batts.

Using fibre reactive dyes, Procion MX from G & S Dyes in Toronto, I used the following percentages.

Total dye stock for each batt was 42 ml of 2% fibre reactive dye stock solution.

Batt 1 Yellow85%. Cyan 5%. Fuchsia5%. Black5%.
Batt 2            76%            14%            5%           5%
Batt 3            67%            23%            5%           5%
Batt 4            57%            33%            5%           5%
Batt 5            47%            43%            5%           5%

The sample spun and knitted was a total of only 7 grams spun semi woollen (carded, short forward draw). Yarn was not wet finished until after knitting.
After spinning I chain plyed, something I must practice and get better at doing.

The resulting yarn is springy and my guess would be around 30-33 microns for softness. Would be good for a cardigan or mitts, but not next to skin.