![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/Isaac-and-Simon.jpg\" "\\"Isaac")
<\/a><\/p>\nAnd 2 fleeces.<\/p>\n
Which I washed.<\/p>\n And washed.<\/p>\n And washed.<\/p>\n And set on the counter to dry while I scrubbed and bleached my tub and pretended I had never rubbed my face against those filthy grimy sheep fleeces every morning when I hugged my sheep.\u00a0 Blech.<\/p>\n I sat on the deck with the fleece to pick out the bits of hay and grain.\u00a0 This is, ironically enough, called “picking” fleece.\u00a0 Because in the old days they didn’t have time to make up names for things that meant anything other exactly what you were doing.<\/p>\n Then I excitedly attended an afternoon of fiber fun at my friend’s house.\u00a0 Where women were dyeing wool.<\/p>\n And spinning yarn.<\/p>\n All the while cute baby Angora bunnies were napping in the rabbitry.\u00a0 Ooooh, gratuitous bunny cuteness!<\/p>\n Then I got out my nice clean fleece and told them how I wanted to spin it into yarn.\u00a0 And those ladies started explaining things like crimp, lock, staple, and grade.\u00a0 Plus, combing, carding, drafting, rolag, roving, and worsted.\u00a0 All the while their hands were knitting and spinning and my brain was overloading and I only managed to stay calm by thinking to myself,\u00a0 “cute baby bunnies, cute baby bunnies, cute baby bunnies…….”<\/p>\n But I finally jumped in with a pair of hand carders and slowly and aggressively started forcing the fibers of my fleece into alignment.\u00a0 Until someone stopped me, readjusted my hands onto my lap, and said, “If your hands are sweaty then you’re doing it wrong.\u00a0 It should pull easily and lightly through the fleece.”\u00a0 So I wiped my sweaty hands, started over, thought to myself, “cute baby bunnies, cute baby bunnies….” and produced one small little rolag.<\/p>\n Loaded with hay. Or VM (vegetable matter), as they say in the craft.\u00a0 I showed my little rolag around.<\/p>\n “Is there still too much hay in my fleece?”\u00a0 I asked.\u00a0 At which point everyone hemmed and hawed and looked away until someone said,<\/p>\n “Hey, did everyone see those cute baby bunnies in the rabbitry?!”<\/p>\n Great.<\/p>\n But, nonetheless, it was an incredible day of learning and fun.\u00a0 And I was even more determined to get my fleece cleaned and carded and ready for spinning.\u00a0 Until I got distracted.<\/p>\n Because while I was putting away my fleece in the knitting section of the craft cabinet, I rediscovered the bag of yarn my aunt sent me. \u00a0 And that bag looked so sad and neglected that I knew immediately it needed to be pulled out and worked with.\u00a0 Since there were several individual skeins too small for a large project I decided they were perfect for knitting some summer headbands for Pretty.<\/p>\n So I taught myself to make ribbed stitches using an easy tutorial for coffee cup cozies.<\/p>\n Although mine were not as fancy.<\/p>\n Then I moved on to the headbands, using this pattern:<\/p>\n http:\/\/knitting.about.com\/od\/accessories\/p\/trinity-band.htm<\/p>\n Which meant that my bag of fleece became the new sad and neglected bag of the knitting section.\u00a0 And that’s just the way things might have stayed.\u00a0 1 bag of fleece.\u00a0 1 bag of yarn.\u00a0 1 farmer working her way through both of them.<\/p>\n Until I got the call.<\/p>\n My friend and sheep shearer was on his way to shear a flock of 25 sheep.\u00a0 And he was willing to let me come along and get in the way<\/span> help.\u00a0 As an added bonus, no one really wanted those fleeces.\u00a0 So not only was it irrelevant if I sheared them in random, short, unspinnable chunks of wool, but the fleeces were up for grabs.\u00a0 As a matter of fact, no one even wanted those sheep.\u00a0 All those sheep needed new homes.\u00a0 The family was giving them away.\u00a0 Free.<\/p>\n Well, I can fill the truck with animal crates and carriers, bags for fleece, and a slew of children, before you can finish spelling F–R–E–E.<\/p>\n Kind of.\u00a0 In my mind.<\/p>\n Anyway, when we got there we discovered an incredible flock of Suffolk and Welsh sheep on a lovely pasture.<\/p>\n And although there was a sweet dog there, she didn’t turn out be much of a herding dog.<\/p>\n And even though we had 4 children, 4 adults, and a shepherd’s crook,<\/p>\n the sheep knew where all the holes in the fence were located.<\/p>\n Once we blocked the holes and finally managed to herd the flock toward the barn for shearing, there was still 1 black-faced ewe that led a reasonably successful charge right back past us.<\/p>\n By “reasonably successful”, I mean almost half the flock got away.\u00a0 Eh.<\/p>\n And despite our best efforts, they were never caught again that day.\u00a0 You can call sheep stupid if you want.\u00a0 But neither grain nor hay nor saccharine smiles and baby talk was enough to convince them to get close to that barn again.\u00a0 Just for the record, throwing things and cursing them didn’t work either.<\/p>\n It didn’t matter, though.\u00a0 We had more sheep contained than we could get sheared anyway.\u00a0 There was no way that 1 shearer could work his way through 14 sheep, some that were thick and matted with a couple years’ worth of wool, on a 90 degree day with 90% humidity.\u00a0 Especially when he was giving me opportunities to make pathetic tentative passes through the wool with the clippers on my own.\u00a0 Inbetween the times when I accidentally released the sheep because I was afraid my legs were clamped around her too tight and I might be hurting her or cutting off her breathing or there was a horsefly on my arm.\u00a0 Helping and hindering are uncomfortably close together when I’m shearing.<\/p>\n Luckily, The Other Half is an excellent shearer.\u00a0 Which was annoying<\/span> awesome.\u00a0 He even managed several sheep on his own.<\/p>\n The excuses I have chosen to explain why he’s better than I am are as follows:<\/p>\n 1.\u00a0 He’s right handed.\u00a0 Learning new tasks is always backwards for us lefties.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0 He’s been using clippers on his own hair since I met him and clipping the boys’ hair for years.<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0 He’s completely comfortable with both soft and hard handed methods of control<\/a>.\u00a0 STOP RESISTING, SHEEP!<\/p>\n And the shepherd’s crook came in handy after all.\u00a0 Because while we we torturing<\/span> shearing the sheep, it was keeping the kids busy.<\/p>\n By now you’re probably feeling sorry for those hot, sweaty shearers.\u00a0 Or at least those poor harassed sheep.<\/p>\n Which means you’re just not paying attention.<\/p>\n Because I was the one left with overflowing bags of fleece.<\/p>\n Oh, the pressure.\u00a0 The stress.\u00a0 The alarming lack of knowledge!<\/p>\n Which fleeces to keep?\u00a0 Which to share?\u00a0 Which to use as mulch?<\/p>\n Is this a good fleece? What about this?<\/p>\n I think this is a fleece with crimp….<\/p>\n ….but what is this fleece?\u00a0 Fluffy?<\/p>\n And I don’t care what the fibers arts calls this fleece.\u00a0 I see it every time I look in the mirror when the humidity is over 60%.\u00a0 This is frizzy, people.\u00a0 I know frizzy.<\/p>\n The boys couldn’t really understand what all the fuss was about.\u00a0 They saw no reason all that fleece had to be skirted and washed and carded.\u00a0 They thought wearing it in a natural state was much cooler than anything knitted.\u00a0 Knitted stuff is for girls.\u00a0 Big woolen coats that you can tell your friends are actually bear skins are much more impressive.<\/p>\n If sorting the fleece was difficult, then choosing the sheep to keep was extremely trying.\u00a0 I brought home 4 ewes.<\/p>\n I should really only keep 2.\u00a0 But 1 of the white ewes has a brown face which is adorable and she is particularly interested in us (which is as close as these sheep are to friendly).\u00a0 1 of the white ewes has a black face and legs, exactly like the sheep everyone drew when growing up, which is sweet and nostalgic.\u00a0 1 of the ewes is all black—black being one of the few knitted colors my boys might wear.<\/p>\n 1 of the ewes has a black face and an awesome fleece with various shades of black, white, and grey. And spots under her eyes that remind all of us of a moth or butterfly’s attempt to fool predators with spots on their wings.\u00a0 I’ve never seen that before, but it was a prevalent trait in the flock.<\/p>\n I’m sure there’s a name for that marking but I can’t possibly keep all the terms of sheep markings in my brain along with all those fleece terms.\u00a0 After all, at this time of year I need to save room in there for zucchini and squash recipes.<\/p>\n To make all that decision-making more complicated, there’s still 1 ewe at the farm that is such a compact size with a lustrous black wool that I really, really, really, need to go back for her.\u00a0 Even though I think she’s hopes that she never, ever, ever sees me again.<\/p>\n All those sheep add up to 5.\u00a0 Or 7 if you count the sheep I already have.\u00a0\u00a0 Did I mention the amount of pasture I own is 0.00 acres?<\/p>\n No one should have to live with this kind of pressure.\u00a0 It’s almost unbearable.<\/p>\n Plus in the midst of all that fleece, Harvey’s wool was ready for harvest, too.\u00a0 So we spent a few minutes clipping him on the deck.<\/p>\n And I added his bag of wool to the craft cabinet.<\/p>\n Now renamed the Bags & Boxes O’ Fleece closet.<\/p>\n So now the relaxing days of summer have morphed into frantic fleece processing.\u00a0 Although there have been some benefits.\u00a0\u00a0 I have improved my skirting skills from slowly and hesitantly removing small amounts of wool from the edge of the fleece in an attempt to save as much fleece as possible to quickly ripping away large chunks of fleece that have even the slightest imperfection.\u00a0 Which means there was plenty of yucky fleece left over to mulch the roses ad azaleas.<\/p>\n The added pressure of all that extra fleece meant I finally got Isaac’s wool all carded and ready for spinning.<\/p>\n So I am closer and closer to finding out how much yarn one of my sheep really makes in one shearing.\u00a0 Well, I am closer to turning all those rolags into roving.\u00a0 By pulling them, individually, slowly, through the hole of button.<\/p>\n http:\/\/community.knitpicks.com\/profiles\/blogs\/how-i-made-roving-from<\/a><\/p>\n Which shouldn’t take too long.\u00a0 Right?<\/p>\n And then spinning that roving into yarn.\u00a0 As soon as I learn how to spin.<\/p>\n So I’m kinda close to finding out how much yarn one of my sheep really makes in one shearing.\u00a0 I think.\u00a0 Probably.\u00a0 Maybe.<\/p>\n I am also giving my library card a summer vacation.\u00a0 Since I now carry my bag of fleece and my borrowed carders every where I go instead of a book.<\/p>\n And I have great hopes that carding my way through all this fleece is doing incredible things for those flabby areas hiding my triceps.\u00a0 Who needs the Shake Weight<\/a> when you have a closet full of carding to do?\u00a0 I see trim and toned arms when I look at this.\u00a0 And if not, I see a nice knitted shrug to cover all that cellulite by this winter.\u00a0 A win-win, people, win-win.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
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