Type of wool? (a question and tiny little rant)

General Knitting
20

As Jeanius80 said, the micron count has to do with the diameter of the individual wool (or alpaca or silk or angora or mohair, etc) fiber, not the yarn. Fibers with a low micron count are more suited to being spun thin but that does not mean that they have to be.

If you google wool micron you’ll find results relating to wool and micron count.

I think that paton’s merino is a very nice yarn and I’ve never had problems with it but it is on the coarser side of the merino spectrum so I could understand if someone with really sensitive skin might find it itchy.

I still haven’t found a great table online yet but I did find these two:
Wool By Grades
Fiber Grades (PDF)

The first chart for some reason only includes the bradford scale numbers for some wools. The Bradford system is and older way of measuring fineness based on how many 560 yard skeins of yarn can be spun from a pound of a specific fiber. In this instance, the higher the number, the finer the fiber.

The second chart includes the bradford scale and it’s corresponding micron diameters, and has micron counts for exotic fibers.

I did a little more searching and found some stuff on the UN food and agriculture website about the indigenous sheep breeds of greece:
Here’s a list of indigineous breeds, though most don’t have pictures.

Here’s the page of greek sheep pictures.

Here’s a document from 1979 entitled "declining Mediterranean Sheep Breeds with a little bit of info on greek sheep. On the figures page there are some pictures but they’re in black and white and aren’t the best quality.

While some of those sheep produce medium wool, most of them produce very coarse wool, suited for rugs and carpets, and maybe even ropes or twine.
There may be finewool sheep being raised somewhere near you, but none of the native sheep produce exceptionally fine wool.

As for alpaca never being itchy, I personally find that alot of alpaca yarns feel very “prickly” to me. Alpaca is a very straight and silky fiber so it feels nice to the touch, but if the fibers are thick, it will still feel itchy next to the skin. That is not to say that all alpaca is itchy to me, the nicer stuff like baby/cria, royal, or superfine, never bothers me.
Mohair is similar: it’s a smooth fiber but most adult mohair is really coarse so that’s why so many people find it so soft to the touch and so itchy next to the skin.
Kid mohair is nice though, it’s smooth and lustrous, and creates a nice fluffy halo, though not as big as adult mohair, but it’s alot finer and shouldn’t bother most people.