Snow Day!

Wow! What a day! It started out with a snowman of the warm type....then out to shovel! First, the house door had to be shoved open as a drift had rendered it unusable! Then to look up and see every door of the barn drifted shut....oh boy! This is is one of those doors. The threshold of the door is about 14 inches off the ground, so the drift ended up being up to my waist of tightly packed, super dense snow. Got pretty sweaty shoveling that one out!



Once in the barn, this is what the window looked like looking out! Wow!

Here is another door....that drift was nearly four feet deep and impassable.

All the animals were in the barn for this storm. Wooly Bear and Wilbur are enjoying their cud in their stall. This storm was caused by a fierce low pressure system that gave pressure readings along the lines of a category 2 hurricane. Obviously we don't see that around here very often! I noticed the anxiety in my animals. Wooly Bear started butting the wall with his head for the first time ever (he is a very docile ram), just as the storm began to hit. Today, he did it again a time or two, until he received a surprise splash of water. Back to chewing cud and being happy with my reassuring voice! :)

Wait....that's no sheep! No, that's our pony, Calypso (or Calippy, or Bud, or Buddy Boo....idio, idio, idiosyncracy here?)



They went out in the snow to gallop around and have a good roll.

Then back to the gate, pleading to come back into the barn! Any apples for me? (Yes, Calippy, they are in your grain bin...)
After an afternoon playing in the snow, shoveling, cleaning stalls, moving the chickens to a "warming hut", and tending to water buckets and feeders, it was time to come in for a steamy bowl of homemade chili made with our garden tomatoes and homemade garlic biscuits. Yum!
In the news, even snowplows are getting stuck, and city buses. A sheriff's squad car was smacked by a semi when responding to a different accident, and LED traffic lights were blown over with snow so bad you couldn't see which light was on. LED lights do not burn as warm as normal lights, therefore they don't melt the snow! Power outages are reported all over the place, and cars are in ditches everywhere. We are thankful we haven't had any serious problems.

Next up? Punch number two! Tonight is high winds and rapidly falling frigid temperatures! Oh boy!!!

Got my socks on...the blizzard is here!!

Good thing I finished those socks quickly, as they are certainly needed! Snow had been predicted for a few days now, but that storm has turned into a truly defined, all out blizzard. We don't get "real" blizzards here very often, once every decade or so at the most frequent (although we all feel like every storm is really like a blizzard in our minds!). Here is a picture of those wonderful Gwendolyn socks...warm and thick, AND with a pretty top band. Blizzard away!


This next picture shows that gusset I detailed in a blog entry a week or so ago. This is what it looks like when it's done. The vertical stitch columns coming down the heel on the left are where you pick up those stitches. The result is a little triangle in the fabric that cuddles your heel just right. (Blizzard...sustained winds of at least 35 to 40 m.p.h)
I have lots of Marybay yarn to sell! At least 10 skeins all two ply spun on the Kiwi. It is incredibly soft and a challenge for me to not pig it all for myself! It has a lovely buttery cream color with wonderful lustre and oh so soft!!! (Blizzard...visibility reduced to 1/4 mile or less for at least three hours.)
Here is the rest of the fiber from Marybay I have yet to spin. It is the lovely neck wool that I will card before spinning as it is so fine. This is where I get intimidated...the wool is sooooo nice that I freeze up and fear I'll wreck it! It is truly exceptional wool. (Blizzard...considerable falling and blowing snow...here that means several inches up to a foot of snow or more.)
All the schools in most of our state have closed for Wednesday. Our govenor has declared a state of emergency throught the whole state! I don't remember that ever happening before! Our sheep are cuddled up in the barn, along with everyone else except the chickens, who are dozing in the coop. My sheep are sure spoiled! The air temperature is pretty high yet...around upper twenties as is typical when it snows, but as this low pressure system moves out, we're going to fall into a rapid deep freeze of below zero temps. Yuck!! That's what I hate the most. I can handle the snow and all that, but the below zero stuff is miserable. We've weathered out these storms before and we'll do fine unless the power goes out. Then it's a scramble to keep the water tank from freezing up before the water can be distributed.

So with all this blizzard stuff going on, I'm so glad to have my socks! It's hard enough to go out in these storms to care for the animals, but imagine going out and never noticing cold toes! That is my daily life here. My feet never get cold, and I'm usually outside for an hour or more. I wear rubber mud boots...not even winter boots. And cold floors are not even noticable, unless I put my cotton socks back on! Then I feel like I'm standing on an ice rink!

Happy Blizzarding!

Variation

Meet Gretl! :) She's a purebred Shetland ewe that I do not own. Gretl's fleece shows that variation I like to see in a Shetland sheep. These variable fleeces give the fiber nut lots of variety in fiber type, and thus, suitable wool for a variety of fiber projects.


The top wool in the picture is soft neck wool. It is shorter in length and much crimpier. The fleece in the middle was taken midside (along the ribs). Unfortunately, Gretl's fleece has been washed, so the fibers are a little blurred. She has nice crimp midside, with an intermediate length fiber (about 4 inches). Strangely, some tips are nice all the way to the tip, while other locks have about 1/2 " of outer coat on them! The wool is very soft and fine, with a nice crimp. The lower left and lower right locks come from Gretl's back legs, and is called the britch wool. This is typical of Shetlands in that the wool looks and feels very different here. There is a soft, downy under wool, and a longer, stronger, coarser wavy part that can vary in length quite a bit (Gretl's is about 6 inches long). It looks very different than the wool under the sheep's neck or along the ribs.
Here is that fine, crimpy neck wool. It is really short, just over two inches long. (Gretl was what I called "zip" sheared, meaning she was sheared with an electric clipper. I call it "zip shearing" because it is sheared off so quick, as opposed to hand shearing, with hand blades...those garganutian scissors. Zip shearing cuts the fiber at skin level. Handshearing requires leaving some wool on the skin.
Here is the britch wool on top of the neck wool, to really show the contrast. The differences of color here reveal some spotting. Gretl's fleece is nice in that it shows that variation that is so useful.

The socks in my last post are finished. I'll post the pictures in my next blog! We are bracing for our first significant snowfall this winter in the days to come, so I'm sure I'll be wearing them right away!

Shetland Socks

...I just can't stop making those socks! Shetland sheep have absolutely the best yarn for socks! (Ok, maybe that's a bit subjective.) You get everything you need all in one package...color that won't bleed or fade, depth that adds interest and appeal to the eye, strength that gives your socks durability, softness that makes you wiggle your feet just for the delight of it, and just the right crimp to give you cush without excess loft. If there is tooooo much crimp, the yarn would have to be pretty small in grist ("diameter") to allow your feet to fit into your everyday shoes with the socks on. Excess crimp makes cush, yes, but I've also discovered that really crimpy yarn makes for some saggy socks! I save the crimpiest wool for other projects.

Here is Gwendolyn. She's a moorit Shetland ewe who has really nice conformation and a lovely fleece (striking her model's pose here!). She does not have the variation of fiber I'd like to see to make her a believable purebred Shetland (that means her crimp is pretty consistent from neck to tail, which resembles commercially bred sheep.) Other than that, her wool makes for lovely socks!

So of course, I had to make MORE socks! This time, I added a rim around the cuff. That yarn is (gasp!) a synthetic yarn! Gulp! Yep. I used it. It is left over from a project I knitted before I had my own sheep, or could spin my own yarn. I love using a contrasting color just for the cuff for visual appeal. I also like how easy these socks are to pull on or off in a hurry. In this picture, I've knitted to top of the sock and already turned the heel. Here I am just picking up those stitches on the heel flap to begin knitting in the round again for the gusset decreases. When I first learned how to do this, I thought it was so hard! But each sock I made (and a few screw-ups along the way), got better. Now it's not only easy, but one of my favorite parts of knitting the sock.
There are different ways of doing this step, and everyone has their favorite. Once you learn it, you can fly along here and have it done in a minute or two. Here, the right needle is inserted into the next stitch being picked up, and the yarn is wrapped around, ready to be pulled through the stitch. That little curve on fabric under the needles on the left is where the heel will sit in the sock.

Gwendolyn's wool was spun worsted weight, so this will be a wonderful armor against the cold this winter. Bring on the cold weather and let's get it over with! I'm ready with all my warm, soft socks!

Speaking of stuffing...

From Wooly Bear and all of us at Wheely Wooly Farm, Happy Thanksgiving!

All's not white

This is fun. One of the best, of unarguably many things, about Shetland sheep is their color! Spinners and knitters LOVE playing with the endless possibilities of natural colors. The best part, is that natural colors do not fade or bleed.

This picture is fun. The fiber samples above come from three purebred, registered Shetland ewes. All three of these ewes look whitish to a casual observer. If you see the sheep standing out in the pasture, you'd describe them as light, or white. However, once you wash and start spinning the fiber, you can see white is not white is not white! Fun!

The first sample (on the left) comes from an older ewe named Marybay. She is lovely! This fiber sample has already been washed and about half of the fleece has been spun into eight lovely skeins already. It is incredibly soft, and has impressive luster. But as you can see, it has a lovely honey cream color to it, that is very warm and appealing. I LOVE it! I might add that Marybay is Honey's mom. :)

The middle fiber is from Iris and is not washed. She, too, looks white in wool from a distance, but upon spinning, you can see her wool takes on a beautiful white/grey/hint of black look to it. It creates lovely fabric that is warm and cozy in feel and looks come winter weather. This wool is really fun to dye or leave natural and has beautiful luster. It is also great fun to add accent yarns to the knitting, as the tricolors in the fleece allow accent colors to pop very softly, which brings interest to the eye. Everyone knows how much I love Iris's fleece!

The third sample (far right) is from Sweetie and is also washed. Sweetie has a honey look to her wool when you part it and see her up close, but when you wash and spin her wool, it has a glittery, fresh fallen snow look to it. It is bright and soft, but lacks the depth the subtle hues of undertones give.

All three are lovely "white" fleeces. It is fun to play around with the color! These are just three samples of color in Shetland fiber, for the actual combinations and hues seem endless to me. That is what makes it all so fun and creative!!

Bad Dog! Bad Cat!

We were gone this afternoon, flew in for a DH pick up, then out the door for the evening. Apparently, that was a bit much for the mischievous Annebelly (idio-, idio-, idiosyncrasy?) and Sophie! When we arrived back home later, I suddenly heard Holly cry out with sadness....this is that beautiful first skein of yarn (see prior blog entry) she spun last week! Badddddd Doggggg! Wait.....or badddddd kittyyyyy? Who dun it? Hummm...

I think we just need to rewind the skein by hand and it will be ok. It was laying in a basket on the sofa table. It must have looked like an appealing dog toy, or something! Such are the perils of pets and yarn! I had nobody to scold, for the timing was off. So while I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to fix this skein, someone decides now would be a good time to chase her tail! Maybe she thought the skein of yarn was her tail with pretty pink and green and blue ribbons in it?


So would a Border Collie ever get into this kind of trouble? Yes! One day I was visiting an old shepherd in my neighborhood. His Border Collie got bored with us people talking, and investigated her surroundings for something fun to do. In no time at all, she found a white plastic tree wrap loose at the base of a cute little fruit tree near us. Before we realized what she was up to, she had ripped the wrap off the tree and was having a delightful time flinging it up into the air and pouncing on it as it hit the ground, then repeating the fling. Agggghhhhh! She was so cute, I've never forgotten it.

Back to sheep........

I'll end with this:

Is the wheel a marguerite, a daisy chain, the band?
Surely this tiny thing so sweet comes from Titania's Land.
Fairy workers must have shorn the cloudy fleeces white,
Or dandelions dainty puff when drift in lazy dreams,
Or spikey thistles downy fluff tumbling in sunny beams
Before the rosy glow of dawn put whimsy to flight.
They say a fairy has no heart, but sorrow now they feel
For mortal souls who grieve apart and so they've lent a wheel.
Spin little wheel a thread that is stout
Spin for our seamen true,
Spin the pain of parting out
From hearts which sorrow and rue.
Spin the warmth of wool little wheel
Forget your fairy days-
Spin for the men so brave and leal
Who guard the ocean ways.

The Fairy Wheel
Anonymous Poem from England
The Complete Spinning Book by Candace Crockett, p. 40