Genuine Shetland Lace Patterns

Does anyone out there know of a reasonably small lace pattern repeat that was designed in the Shetland Islands? I am planning on making a lace scarf with Wooly Bear's lovely fleece to save as a keepsake in our farm's collection. I have found some, but would like to find as many as I can before I make a final choice. I'm looking for a charted pattern, small enough for a few repeats across. If you know of one, you can email me at my address shown at the top right of my blog, just under Wooly Bear's picture.

One Beloved Dog.

Some of you know that we've had dogs, all gone now. In recent discussions about dogs, I've come to feel I'm capable of looking at these pictures again without overwhelming sadness.

This is our middle dog, Simon (picture taken days before he died). We called him Simon because he was so smart, you could practically play the childhood game of "Simon Says" with him. He trained himself at lightning speed, something I adore about the herding breeds. They mentally connect with you so that brain waves are continuously flowing between you at all times.

He was also an awesome family dog. He loved being outside, going along for rides, and walking on the leash, although leashes were plumb not necessary for him. All of my dogs were that way; very connected.

Simon was a Shetland Sheepdog who grew too big for the showring, among other things. He was an excellent example of what's wrong with breeding for show these days, and not for purpose and use. He had a collie-like temperment and amazed everyone who knew him at his "unSheltie-likeness"...no snippyness or barkiness or cowering. He was a normal, happy, loving dog who fit in with all things in our lifestyle. He drew grand attention where ever we took him, and was an excellent ambassador of the breed. We lost him just before Easter in 2009, with many, many tears. He had a large bowl of ice cream, and tootie fruities just before he left home...two of his top favorites. On that day, our journey together came to an end, but his memory will be vivid in my mind for years to come. We miss him. A lot.

Sheep can do funny things to you...

It's shearing time on Wheely Wooly Farm. Not only are we busy with getting long awaited fiber off the sheep, but we are busy keeping records of what we raise. These combined processes take much effort, and are not for the large scale producer. As I study over what we've raised and make my notes as I work with the fiber to an end stage product, I have some observations, about me!:

*I really love sheep. I love their temperments. I love their sounds. I love what they require of me, and I love what they give me. Funny. I would not have pegged myself as being a shepherd back in those years of "So what are you going to do when you grow up?" Shepherdess was not even an option. Funny.

*I am thrilled with the sheep I've selected. Before I had my own flock, I spun and knit. I took classes and did all that fun stuff (still do). I wanted to spend the rest of my life learning and growing in knitting and spinning. Funny. (!) Few breeds can do that for you like Shetlands. This breed is going to keep me busy for a very long time! The spinning and knitting skills the Shetlanders had historically are NOT learned overnight!! This is not a breed for one who moves onto new kinds of projects frequently. It never was and still is not today a cull-like-mad-to-improve kind of breed. Fortunately, because it takes time to acquire good Shetland-type knitting skills, I have time to get it right in my flock. My goal is to raise fleeces that mirror what I've learned about in the past. There are some modern things in life I really love. Modern sheep are not one of them. The more I experience modern "breeds" of sheep, the more I've come to realize they've lost their sparkle.

*I've come to learn how intimately linked fiber is with the end product it is used in. If you want to create genuine Shetland knitted garments, you cannot really use a different breed's fiber, or even crossbred fiber. The fiber of other breeds dilutes the special qualities of Shetland. This awareness can turn you into a Shetland fanatic!! Suddenly, you notice lace patterns you would have skipped over before. Things in life around you suddenly get transposed onto grid paper...to see if a nice pattern would emerge! You think about clarity in yarn characteristics. And bounce. And elasticity. And strength. You think about things that no one else in your circles understands...you're suddenly speaking greek to them!

*I've turned into a scrutinizer of old photos! Me! I love looking back, but I'd rather be outside than study photos! Things can sure change. There are many great old photos to look at. My favorite is of a woman shearing a sheep on her lap while wearing wooden shoes.

*You start thinking a sheep is attractive! Take Lil' Rainbow, for example (previous blog entry). She looks a lot like Dr. James Bowie's tup...a photo taken around 1910. She has that wild Shetland look to her; a sheep from a wild place. Her color is like a rainbow...so sensationally colorful....so rarely seen. Her fleece is long, soft, fine. It drapes about her. She sparkles.

There is so much more! Sheep really can do funny things to you. Watch out! You might be next!

Poof.

The bridal wreath bushes are in full bloom around Wheely Wooly Farm. Each year, whatever the weather, they load up with blossoms and bloom away. This year, they are quite early! There is a lovely bush on each side of the front porch, making the porch a protected and secret space.
The pretty little green leaves, along with the white flowers, have given our farm it's theme color. This goes along with the beautiful white lilac planted on the corner of the house. Since the house is white with green shutters, I think we have a theme! An old-fashioned farm house, with old-fashioned shrubs in front, planted decades and decades ago by some unknown hardworking dairy farmer.
The porch has Palladian symmetry along the front. It just doesn't seem right to have such balance, and only one star...so I hung a star on each side of the front door. There.
My favorite hen loves to snatch up bugs along our lush green lawn. We call her Henny Penny, because I have two of these outstanding Australorp hens, and they look so much alike, I have to scrutinize their combs to tell who's who. So we call them Henny Penny. (One is Henny, the other is Penny, but they don't know that.)
I'd love to spend more time out here, watching Henny Penny peck around in the grass, while the breeze cools me off after a round of hard work, maybe sipping a lemonade...but who has time for that?!? (giggle, giggle) I've got sheep to shear!

This is Lil' Rainbow, whom I've written about in previous blogs. She is an iset Shetland ewe of very pleasant and sweet temperment, unless she sees a lamb she wants to keep for herself (!)
I cannot wait to spin her fleece! I snipped a few "test locks" to wash, spin and knit up. I was extremely pleased with the results, so I cannot wait to get more yarn from her fleece! Off the fleece came, while she was chewing her cud. Poof! Done.
Ok...not really! But it is fun to think it's that easy! :) She was actually pretty easy to shear, and stood very nicely for me. First thing I noticed is that, well, she is not exactly starving!I took her fleece off in two big pieces with sides intact head to tail. It is pleasantly soft. I was expecting coarser! I love these surprises!Underneath, she was very clean. I pretty much figured it would be, but it's always nice to find this underside clean. It will be a joy to work with this fiber. It took me only a couple of minutes to skirt the fleece and it went straight into the wash. It's now drying.
So I'll end with Honey's yarn. This is a singles...as a 2-ply, it will be laceweight...probably 20 wpi. I now have eight ounces of this 2-ply spun up. It is very easy to spin, and a pleasure to work with! Shetlands are truly an amazing breed! I'm hooked!

Fleeces

Here is Honey's fleece, washed. The locks on the left are midside, the locks on the right, pointing downward are britch. She has a very fine, silky, lustrous fleece, which weighted nearly three pounds...a lot for a yearling Shetland ewe! I've already spun up a couple of bobbins of her wool.

Underneath all that wool, things were very clean. Longer fleeces stay clean easily, unless the sheep likes to wear their dinner on their head! (Who would do THAT??)

This is Gracie's fleece. She's the second lamb born here this spring, and she's now....38 days old. You can see here how her color is changing already. Fun!!

Gretl Swallowtail Shawl Update: I've been done with the budding lace pattern for several days. I'm waiting for time to knit again to begin the lily of the valley pattern. This is the busiest time of the year for our family, so some projects will slow up a bit! Can't WAIT to start working on it again!

And we extend a warm welcome to the families coming out to our farm tomorrow morning to learn about chickens and ducks! The ducks have already been to the beauty salon, and Coopville has been spruced up after a long winter's rest. See you tomorrow!

Wild Sheep!

Ah, Gracie...that's my shoestring...

Gracie! I just retied that!

Do you know where your Handbook is?

Mona and Wheely Wooly Lerwick; just born

It's time to start assessing lambs! This is where the NASSA Handbook comes out...again! :) The Handbook is a great compilation of basic things Shetland to help you assess the quality of your lambs. If you are looking to buy Shetland sheep, this is a must have! Without the Handbook, you are walking blindly.

On the last page of the Handbook, you will find the Breed Standard. It is a very straightforward document that gives you a good description of what to look for in a good Shetland sheep. You should never buy a sheep without first memorizing the standard, or at least assessing the sheep with the standard in your hand and the sheep in front of you before buying, or you might pay too much money for a sheep that is not as correct. The worst case scenario is you end up buying a sheep (for a fancy price) that is some form of crossbred, but the "breeder" tells you it is a fancy Shetland. How do you keep people honest? The Standard!

So what does a good Shetland look like? There is a LOT of conflicting information out there!!!! That's why it's critical to use the Standard, not what someone says, as your guide. A longtime breeder once told me that all Shetlands are BIG. I wanted a smaller sheep. When I asked about why big, I was told that small Shetlands were "malnourished or something... all the early Shetlands here were big." Upon doing my own research, I learned this was bad advice. Many things "Shetland" are small...ponies, dogs, yarn grist, people (!) spinning wheels, cottages, peeries, and Shetland itself!! The sheep are no exception. Other people tried to tell me that Shetland wool is short. That, too, proved to be bad advice. Things Shetland just are furry, fuzzy and wooly. That is what allows these animals to survive and thrive in a climate with much wind and over 100 inches of rainfall a year. The sheep are no exception.

So how do you avoid pitfalls? READ THE STANDARD! It does not contain secret code. The words are plain and mean what they mean.

So I do.

Here's what Wheely Wooly Farm gets excited about!! This little lamb is Wheely Wooly Lerwick. He is Wooly Bear's son, and he is quite a lamb! First, notice his topline!!! Wooohooo!!! It is STRAIGHT! THAT is what the standard calls for. Sloping backs are disappointing. It is well known in livestock circles that dished backs are weak. You would not be credible showing up in a meat sheep class or dairy class, or even with a horse weak in the back. People who show in these classes go to great lengths to "tickle" their animal into a straight topline when the judge looks their way. Shetlands should not have weak backs, either. Yet this problem is currently running rampant here in the midwest, and weak backs in Shetlands are touted as desirable and right. We are striving to correct this issue. Some of our lambs have dished backs. They are out of AI descended stock. That has been very disappointing. We will be working in the future to get rid of that.

The next thing we get excited about here is wool. Lerwick has wool that nearly gets me hyperventilating! It is sooo much like his sire's!! Woohoo!!! The standard calls for fine, soft texture, longish and wavy. This is what that looks like! His wool is very fine, amazingly soft, and has a lovely wave to it from the day he was born, and is thick and lush and long! Ok... check! Since wool is what we are all about, this is very important to us. We use it for creating (attempting to anyway!) the textiles that made this breed famous. If someone tells you wave means crimp, pull out your standard! You will not find the word crimp on the document! If someone tries to tell you wave means crimp, think door to door salesman!

What else do we get excited about? Expression! This is another thing that is getting lost in our region as sheep are crossbred and pitched as pure. Expression will flatten out, become dull. A good Shetland will have a bright, twinkling expression. That is getting harder to find as "new" genetics get spread around. But you will recognize it when you see it! You can't miss it, actually! Lerwick has that bright expression, just like his sire. Ok...check! We strive to bring correct expression forward. Here is a good start!



A good lamb will stand squarely on all four legs, and not be too narrow in hip or shoulder. Another problem showing up in the midwest is body-builder shoulders. That would not be correct either. Bulging shoulders should not be dominating physique. Bone should not be too heavy or too dainty. If you have your standard in front of you before you register a lamb, or before you buy ANY Shetland sheep, you will know what you are getting/what you have. If the breeder's words and the words on the page don't jive, you know you are in a fishy situation.

So what about the rest of our lambs? We have some dished backs, which we find very disappointing. Overall, I was disappointed with some AI descended stock results. We do have very lush fleeces that are thick and soft. They were born that way, which I still find amazing. You won't find that in many other breeds. Gracie has a lovely fleece that is long (!) and soft and fine and wavy! We did get good conformation other than the back issue, and it looks like we have some nice tails. Pumpkin will be stockier than I like to see, just like his mom. His mom's fleece is not staying typey Shetland as she ages, so I hope his will be ok. Hopefully with Wooly Bear as his sire, it will stay more Shetland-like.


Overall, we are very pleased at the quality of fleece we produced in our lamb crop. All of the lambs had lush, wavy fiber...no sparse or tight, tinsey knots. I think Wooly Bear passed that on. Our ewes were selected for longer fiber as well, as that is what history reveals as the true fiber of many famous textiles. Having those longer ewe fleeces helped, I'm sure. We also reached our goal of "solid" colors. The spotted sheep are soooo cute, and I always enjoy viewing the lamb pictures of spotted sheep...can't go wrong there! However, my spinning preference is "solid", or with fading...as the fading gives dynamics that fascinate me as the sheep ages. I am wildly pleased with the pure black we got with Lerwick. That makes exceptionally nice color to knit up in fair isle and other projects. Finding a nice solid black ram was a challenge in my region, as there were endless kats and guls and spots to look at.

Everyone has different parameters they want to breed for, but the basics of the breed remain the same. We feel very fortunate here at Wheely Wooly Farm to have had such a great first lambing. We feel this is due to luck, and a lengthy/diligent ram selection process. We wish we would have gotten more ewe lambs though! :) It took me years of following Shetlands, and more years of spinning and knitting to learn that our national breed organization was not providing accurate information regarding the breed in recent times, and that I would need to find truthful resources myself. Fortunately, in the age of information, I had access to museums, books, old newsletters, and countless knitting/spinning resources by outstanding authors that consistently reveal the truth about this breed...many of whom live in or near the Shetland Islands, that are not associated with our current national breed organization to my knowledge. The textiles Shetland fiber and the Shetland women created ARE famous after all; history and sheep cannot be broken apart! For that, I am sooooo thankful! Here at Wheely Wooly Farm, that honesty will prevail.

(Gretl's Swallowtail Shawl update: I'm on round 12 of the 14 budding lace pattern repeats. What a pleasant knit! The pattern flows smoothly along and has been a joy to work on.)