Lincolns are big sheep that grow long & heavy fleeces. The wool is strong and lustrous, and ranges 33.5-41 microns, with a staple length of 7-15 inches. The roving I started with seems to me to have a staple length at the lower end, and came in the form of a long, flattened ribbon. I can't determine for sure where this Lincoln was from, so I will just guess that it is from outside of Britain.
At any rate, it's rather lustrous, and at once quite fluffy. While spinning, I found this Lincoln to be softer than I would have thought it would be from what I had read. It's not so much that I was spinning a slubby yarn on purpose as I had made the conscious decision not to fight it the whole way. Let it be slubby if it wants to, right? There was lots of back spinning on the spindle besides! When plying, it behaved quite well, and seemed to get to a comfortable amount of twist without me having to second-guess myself too often. That being said, while knitting, I have found a few spots with too much twist; I would try to ply with a bit less twist in future.
I'd describe the resulting yarn as drapey, nice enough to touch in that it felt pretty soft and smooth running through my fingers when winding it, and it didn't prickle worn in a skein around my neck (yes, it's the thing to do when you're particularly delighted with yarn you've made; just wear it around like a necklace for a bit). It's somewhat dense, and definitely rather inelastic. It ended up looking rather more even than I had thought it might (the magic of plying!), but it still has a bumpy, textured look. It came up at about 17 wraps per inch, but it might be more like 15 in some places.
There's a fair bit of halo, so when I cast 50 stitches onto my 3.25mm needles, I figured I'd best stick with stockinette bordered with garter stitch; we'll see how it goes then!
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