On The Coldest Days I Wear Willard

Dressing for the cold is a strange balance of warmth and comfort.  For example, the green jacket I usually wear is not my warmest coat, but it's my most comfortable.  It's warm enough if I put a wool sweater underneath and it's lightweight and slick on the inside and I can move and work in it without it weighing me down and feeling stiff.

None of my sweaters are heavy and uncomfortable and most are quite warm, but for some reason my Willard sweater is the one I always grab on the coldest mornings.  It's also the one I picked on the morning after the chicken disaster.  The temperature wasn't that cold, but I was mentally freezing.  I always called B. Willard "The Sheep of Impeccable Character" and he truly was.  Willard took good care.

His sweater is cozy by design (a simple Elizabeth Zimmerman percentage sweater pattern) made with thick yarn and a tall neck, but also because the yarn was spun so that even though the yarn is thick, it is light and airy.  Both the yarn and the sweater trap and hold warm air like a warm Willard hug.

I actually started this post a couple of weeks ago, but knew it was going to be hard to look back through all the old blog posts to find the picture below of us "dressed alike", but as Bea and I sat in the truck the other day, trying to get our nerve up to get out, I snapped this picture and knew it was more important to say "On the coldest days I wear Willard" than to leave it forever in the drafts.

Wear your irreplaceable handspun hand knits.  There's magic in them...and good company.  I've been wearing this sweater every winter since...

...2011 (!).  The sweater is holding up better than I am.  :-o

Here's a new freezing cold puzzle for you.  Hope you have a Willard sweater or a wool blanket or maybe a warm cat on your lap :-).

Bring Out Your Wool

"Hey, 20, what are you doing?"

"I'm trying to decide which sweater I'm going to wear to the Hug a Sheep Day farm party on Saturday."

"I wish this awesome fall weather would last all year, but it's supposed to be cloudy and kind of cold on Saturday.  We are all going to need to wear wool, especially me since I just got sheared at the Kentucky Wool Festival*.  I found my Ford sweater, B. Willard's sweater and Jester's, but I couldn't find Baaxter's Carbeth."

"It's at the house.  I took it to New York last week.  Um, could I wear your Ford sweater this year?"

"If I can wear your Carbeth!"

"Deal!"

Don't forget this Saturday, October 27th, is National Hug a Sheep Day!  We are once again having our Open Farm Day from 1:00 to 4:00 that afternoon.  Dress warm, because as of right now it's looking a bit chilly, but you never know with the weather.  If I could order up a day like the last few we've had...well, I'd be pretty popular, eh?  ;-D

As always, there will be sheep to hug, sheep to feed cookies and crackers to (but not too many cookies, please!), some dogs to feed (VERY few cookies to :-o), hot cider and snacks, a bonfire, some spinners and knitters (bring your current projects!) and I'm sure another very heated game of Lego Sheep Shearing.  We are also happy to talk sheep, sheep care, answer questions if we can...

If you need more information or directions, please shoot me an email.  Hope to see you on Saturday!

*If you missed the video of Bill shearing 20 at the Kentucky Wool Festival, you will want to go watch it.  Just follow the link above.

How Many Sheep Does It Take To Knit A Sweater?

Baaxter's pretty sure he knows the answer to that question.

You know that old joke...

...where the punch line is "I didn't even know sheep could knit!"

They can't.

Well, we had snow yesterday and today it all melted and warmed up enough that I could knit outside this afternoon.  Baaxter "helped".  I'm ready to start the collar tomorrow, which means the end is in sight.  It's been a fun, easy knit and so many friends are knitting Carbeth sweaters that it's felt like a virtual knitting party :-).

Yarn Along - Meanwhile, Back At The Wool Mill

Somewhere between shearing and skirting (months ago) and heading to the mill came washing and deciding if snipping the sunbleached tips off Baaxter's lamb fleece was going to make enough difference to justify the effort.  Miss B and I pulled out two samples (also months ago :-o), snipped the tips off one and not the other and then combed and carded each and...

...yes, there was a significant difference.  Baaxter Black should be as black as possible so I snipped as many sunbleached tips as I could stand.  If I ever have another black lamb, I'm going to do that while the fleece is still on the sheep.  It was a Job.

So here's Baby B. all washed, snipped and ready to go to Ohio Valley (at least a month ago - what is going on around here?!?).

I'm sure I am speaking for everyone in saying how comforting it is to see Beth and Darlene still running these wonderful old machines.

The wool is dumped into the back of the machine, comes up over the top...

...down into the beginning of the rollers...

...and out as beautiful ready to spin (if you can just find the time!) roving.

Here's a short video:

We took up seven fleeces that day - Billy Belly, Allie, Henri, Ford, Baaxter, Woody and one for Miss B from shearing at Kathy's (also months ago and still not on the blog even though there are some great pictures to share...I think...if I remember back that far.)  Am I ever going to get caught up???

Maisie's headed to the mill tomorrow along with Auntie Lila, Daniel's stunning first shear from last year that I finally talked myself into washing and processing and the dark green Renny.  I'm excited!

*       *       *       *       *

I listened to A Cold Day For Murder by Dana Stabenow (first in a series based in Alaska) this past week in hopes it would remind me of cooler/cold weather...but it didn't.  It's just plain hot.  To make matters worse, I somehow (and this is actually a pretty funny story, so don't let me forget to share it) ended up jumping into several really miserable (because of the heat) projects outside...in the midday sun...when I could have been inside spinning or knitting!

Joining in with Ginny...

Yarn Along - From Sheep To Sweater

I've had some questions about fleece skirting and what comes after that. The one fleece I know I'm going to keep for myself this year is Baaxter's. I always keep the first shear from my bottle lambs because that's the fleece I held on my lap.  The fleece I know by heart :-).  I think it will be fun to chronicle it from start to finish.  

So we watched Baaxter grow up (well, he's actually still growing for probably another year) and get his first big boy hair cut.  His fleece was then wrapped up in a sheet, tagged and added to the pile (:-o).  Sheets make great storage "bags" because they are easy to use (just tie up the four corners) and breathable.  Plastic bags can be problematic sometimes.

I love untying fleece bags and taking that first peek.

Everything's so smooth and orderly (you hope) and ready to unroll/unfold/untwist whatever it takes to get it laid out like it just came off the sheep.  The easiest way I've found to do that is to locate the back legs (the wool is usually longer and coarser, so easy to spot) and work forward to the neck.

I think the boys are very handsome with their crew cuts, but I sure miss their cute fuzzy snuggly warm wool. They on the other hand are not missing it one bit.  We've had several really hot days already :-(.

After I have it laid out I start working my way around the outside, pulling off anything I don't want in my yarn.  Obviously anything super dirty and gross gets tossed.  VM (vegetable matter - hay, straw, sticks...) get picked out.  Belly wool or short wool or hair from around the face and legs gets pulled off, second cuts, coarse britch wool...toss it.

Side note:  If you find any prickly burrs, don't try to pull them out.  Not only will you hurt yourself but they can also break apart and then you'd have lots of tiny burrs instead of one big fat one. When you wash your fleece, the burrs slide right out.  Don't worry about them until then.  That being said, I wouldn't want to buy a fleece full of burrs, but a few wouldn't bother me.

Hard to see in this picture, but this is short wool from around the front legs and also full of VM. Tossed.

The only white hairs I'm aware of on Baby B. are on his face, so this must have been a pass up along his cheek.  That face wool is too short, but most important, any time you see loose hairs, quickly pick them out before they contaminate the rest of the fleece.  Hair is prickly even if it's from B's cute X.

Belly wool and a second cut off to the side.

Coarse britch wool on the left.  I set a couple locks from the rest of his body on the right for comparison.  Britch wool is found where their britches would be...if sheep wore pants.  Sheep don't wear pants ;-).  

Sometimes the britch wool is very different - like Baaxter's - and I separate it out.  Sometimes it's not really that different and wouldn't really detract from the rest of the fleece and I leave it in. Baaxter's fleece is short(ish), soft(ish) and nearly black.  I don't want to add in some long, silver, heavy/thick "hair".  The birds can use it for nest construction :-).

Second cuts - a big controversy among handspinners.  Second cuts happen when the shearer makes a pass along, say, Baaxter's fat tummy, notices that he or she left a strip of wool a little longer than the rest and they go back and make a second pass over it.  

I don't worry about second cuts as long as they are just super short like these.  I wouldn't want a shearer to leave an inch of wool in spots and then go back over it.  That 1" second cut would still shake out like the short ones, but your beautiful fleece is going to be short that inch.  

The other reason I personally don't worry much about second cuts is that I want my sheep to look pretty ;-).  If you don't make that second pass over the sheep, there are no second cuts.  However, if don't make that second pass...your sheep can look a bit funny, all lumpy and bumpy.  Baaxter needs to look good for his pictures :-).

And here he is, ready to head to the wash room.  Next week!  Any questions?

Joining in with Ginny.  I don't have a book to share this week :-/.