Shearing Day

The big event in my sheepkeeping/spinning year must be shearing. After using the services of local chaps - some better than others I might add - I found the perfect chap for the job about three years ago via the jolly old internet! Finding the right shearer was quite difficult. Most shearers are doing commercial flocks of sheep where the fleece needs to be taken off the sheep quickly and is more or less chucked to one side and almost treated like waste. When you have chosen your sheep for their fleece you would like the shearer to take some care when removing said fleece from your animal - no second cuts please! It's quite annoying to see someone slicing through the beautiful fleece and seeing it chopped up before your very eyes. However Philip isn't like that. He comes from a family of handspinners so he knows what spinners want and he also doesn't mind how small the flock numbers are - another problem when dealing with commercial shearers. The next problem is of course the wonderful British weather. Last years shearing was cancelled a couple of times due to snow and rain and I was keeping my fingers crossed that this year would be o.k. I kept the sheep in their field shelter all morning so they were nice and dry when Philip arrived as handling a wet fleece is no fun and the fleece need to be dry for storage until they can be washed.

Nibbles having a haircut.

                                                           And now it's Huberts turn.

 Of course the weather has now turned nasty with lashing rain from the cold north-west with the threat of snow on high ground. What lovely May weather again!

The proposed trip to see the lambs was canceled as a result of the weather. I'm hoping to go next week but Lucy sent some photos taken on the last warm sunny day we had.

May Bank Holiday Weekend

What fantastic weather we have had for the last fews days! Suddenly we have had blue skies and warm temperatures, so much so that I even abandoned wearing socks yesterday! Being a Bank Holiday, we went on a family outing to a local village show that we haven't been to before. This was held in the lovely village of Dilwyn only a few miles from home. It wasn't a large event but it had plenty to keep us entertained for a few hours.

 

It had the usual selection of food stalls, a craft marque where I bought a lovely needlefelted picture of some sheep, classic cars, vintage tractors and ponies etc. Hopefully next year we will be taking some of our classic cars along too.

 

By the dog show area I got chatting to a nice lady about her dog which turned out to be a puppy of a breed I hadn't come across before. Basset Fauvre de Bretagne or Fawn Dog of Brittany. He was a super chap and very friendly with the lovely name of Woody. Here he is.

 

And here is his chum whose name I can't remember, but he is a Standard Wirehaired Dachshund. Another beautiful dog and much bigger than the Dachshunds you normally see out and about.

 

 

I have also managed this weekend to begin washing fleeces and get them dry outside in the sunshine. I will do a post on this later this week. I'm afraid the weather looks like rain for tomorrow which is a shame as I'm visiting the lambs and hoped to have nice weather for it. Ah well, I knew it wouldn't last! I'll finish this post with a shot of the flowering currant and forsythia bushes in my garden. They are full of flowers and the bumble bees are enjoying them. Hope your Bank Holiday was a good one too!

May Day already!

I can't quite get my head round the fact that it's the 1st of May already! We still have daffodils in flower and there are hardly any leaves on the trees. The ash tree is always the last to come out in leaf usually late in May, goodness only knows when it will this year. However the wild primroses flowering under the hedge in the back field look wonderful and I wonder if the wet summer we had last year helped in anyway.

 

In answer to the comments about scarves, yes I did take along some of the ones I had woven but they were only as samples to show what the yarn looked like after weaving up. But we could have sold some on the day if we had wanted to. We are hoping to do things for sale later on this year as we think we may have an Etsy store and/or do a craft show or two in the future. Weaving is mainly a winter hobby for me as I have a large garden to keep on top of, and summer is also a time of washing fleeces, dyeing and, weather permitting, spinning out in the garden.

 

 



My scarves are the 2 gold ones and the ecru one on the end plus the dark green tea towel 3rd from the left. The rest are all done by Helen. Should anyone be interested in scarves for Christmas let me know what you want and I will see what I can do.

I have had more photos sent from Lucy at Patchwork sheep and they all seem to be doing really well and growing fast. I'm hoping to get the chance to visit them next week and spend some time getting them used to me. I hope the weather will continue to stay fine so I can sit in the field with them and take photos. In the meantime here are some that Lucy took.

 

Dandelion

 

 

Cyril

 

Waffle

 

Waffles twin sister Truffle

 

Teddy



You haven't been introduced to Waffle, Truffle and Teddy yet! This is what happens when you are at a loose end and look on websites again! These are my latest lamb purchases which I bought a couple of weeks ago. Who could resist! These were born to sheep that Lucy had rescued from someone she had sold their mothers to sometime ago. They all have the same mystery father - he is either a Texel or a Grey-faced Dartmoor the previous owner was uncertain about that. I think they will be lovely additions to the group and their fleeces should be interesting too. How many sheep can you fit in a transit van? Hope everyone has a lovely sunny May day where ever you are.

 

Wonderwool Wales 2013

Boy was that a busy weekend! I've been helping my friend Helen sell weaving yarns at Wonderwool Wales for the last two days and I'm just about recovering from being on my feet the whole time. Saturday was much busier than Sunday from the sales point of view, but people seemed to have more time to chat about weaving on the Sunday which was just as hectic. Here is what the stall looked like before the public were let in.

 

 

I didn't manage to get much shopping time but I did make a quick dash late on in the afternoon to collect my new drum carder and some liquid natural dyes. As it was a bit quieter on Sunday I managed to bag some alpaca fibre, a cone of baby alpaca yarn and some 10/2 cotton from Helen.

 

 

It was great to chat about weaving and I found it very encouraging as there seems to be a new interest in weaving with lots of our customers being beginners. I also bumped into a few old friends from workshops I have been to awhile ago and got up-to-date with what we were all up to. Our next outing is in about eight weeks time when we go to Woolfest in the Lake District. I've been there as a visitor a couple of times so it will be fun to be on the other side so to speak! I'll end this brief post with a couple of views from the stall during Sunday afternoon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

Babette Blanket

I've never been very confident about my crochet. It always looked to me like a screwed up rag. At one time my sister - Urban Rustic - and I signed up on a crochet course at a local college. I still didn't feel happy with my attempts even though I really love crochet lace and I love the crochet blankets like those my Nanna used to make. So I've always been more of a knitter. However I have always been drawn to old crochet hooks made from bone like the one Nanna gave me but was lost amongst the odds and ends many house moves ago.Last year we went to Ludlow Medieval Fayre and came across a stall selling boxes and lots of things made from bone. I couldn't resist buying two lovely, fine bone hooks for £5 each. I haven't stopped crocheting since - they must be enchanted!

This is my version of the Babette Blanket pattern by Kathy Merrick found in Interweave Crochet Spring 2006. The original is worked in Koigu wool using about 13 different colours. In my version I have used lots of different handspun wool that I have amassed over the last few years. They are all of a similar weight - a fine 2ply- and are all pure wool. I started to crochet this during the evenings in the run up to Christmas whilst watching the t.v. But I have only started to put it all together this week. I have really enjoyed working on this and I even like putting all the blocks together which is something that I usually find off-putting about most patterns using small blocks. I will definately make another one but this time I will use hand-dyed yarn for a change.

This photo shows how far I have got with the sewing up. Lots more blocks to go!

Other news..... I have heard my first Chiff-Chaff and seen 2 Swallows flying over the field this afternoon as I walked my dogs. Spring must be on the way surely?

More lamb photos

Here are a few photos of the lambs we bought on wednesday. These were taken by Lucy while the sheep were out in the fields and she has given me permission to post them on this blog. I think she has really managed to capture the lambs as they enjoy the early spring sunshine. The lamb pictured above is Dandilion.

                                                                        This Cyril.

These two cuties are sisters Cloud and Bubble - that's Bubble in the front with the sandy patch on her back.

                                                                         This is Baloo.

                                                                          This is Treacle.

And this has to be my favourite photo of them all! This is Dandilion with his mum Burdock. Isn't it just beautiful? Thanks to Lucy at www.patchworksheep.co.uk for these lovely images as I'm sure when I see them next they will have grown somewhat.

Day Trip

On wednesday we had a lovely trip over to the north welsh coast near Pwlheli. The weather was perfect for a trip over the mountains with a beautiful blue sky, but abit of a chilly breeze still. We headed off in the direction of Welshpool then over the very snowy hills to our coffee stop at Merion Mill. After fortifying ourselves on cheese scones we took off for Dolgellau past some very deep snow drifts. The views were spectacular! I wanted to stop and take loads of photos, but there either wasn't a handy lay-by, or if there was one the view was behind trees. We got a lovely view of Cader Idris - 892m high - covered in bright glistening snow. Wow! Soon we were nearer the coast and the snow had dissappeared.
Suddenly we had arrived in spring! Criccieth is a lovely seaside town with a medieval castle overlooking the beach. The town was bathed in warm sunshine and the temperature was in double figures! We were amazed to see daisies and celandines in the grass verges, all the forsythia was in bloom. It was so warm.
After a short drive we had arrived at our journeys end -- the home of Patchwork Sheep.
I have been thinking for the last year or so of increasing my small flock of sheep but couldn't make my mind up as what breed to get. I needed something that would produce a nice fleece for spinning and my taste is for a longer lock and a fine fleece too. I didn't want to buy sheep that would produce the same colour fleece, 6 black fleece for instance would be too much.I also wanted a smaller breed of sheep that would be easier to handle as Trixie and Hubert who are my largest sheep can be very difficult to manoeuvre at times. Shetland sheep seemed to be the answer, but most of the ones I had seen advertised were pedigree stock for breeding, and I don't want to go down that route. However, playing on the internet as one does before bedtime!, I came across Patchwork Sheep who had loads of lambs for sale that were a cross between Jacob, Shetland, a little bit of Welsh Mountain and Soay. So I sent Lucy an email and arranged to view some lambs hence the trip. Boy did we have fun! It was very hard to choose which ones to have. Here a some photos to show you some of the lovely lambs I bought.

The little black one in the front is Treacle, a ewe lamb.

This is Cyril.

This is Baloo another wether lamb.

And these were bought by my Mum and they are called Cloud and Bubble. I've also got another wether lamb who was too busy rushing around chasing his mate Cyril and I couldn't get a good photo of him at all! He is called Dandilion - his mother is Burdock - and is a lovely milk chocolate brown. They will be ready for collection later on this summer when they have been weaned from their mum. I'm so excited!!
So after a very pleasant time looking and choosing sheep we headed back home via Merion Mill for tea etc.

Finally a couple of views back towards the mountains from near Porthmadog.