Knitty Couture

On Saturday, I had the opportunity to hang out at Bowood Farms, spending         the afternoon spinning and watching a sheep shearing demonstration.

Peggy and her family drove up from their farm, Wild Flowers Farm, with          their Shetland sheep to give a shearing demonstration.  If you look at the pictures carefully, you’ll notice that Peggy and her daughter are using everyday scissors rather than an electric shearing razor to trim the Shetland blankets.  Part of this reason, Peggy explains, is because her farm is “off the grid”.

I think it’s pretty neat that even the shearing process doesn’t rely on modern amenities.

Isn’t this blanket huge?  Because the shearing process takes approximately       1.5 hours, not all of her 42 sheep can be sheared in a single day.             Interestingly, the few that are sheared on a particular day are ridiculed by those who haven’t been, I guess, because of their “nakedness”.

I would have thought the ones that aren’t yet sheared would be ridiculed        because who in heck wants to wear a heavy coat of wool in the Midwestern heat?  The temp on Saturday was in the upper 80s.  Even I was overheating despite being in the shade of the tent.

We were invited to come out to the nursery to demonstrate the process of        taking the fleece and turning it into yarn.  I’m using a drop spindle in the pics above and check it out!  Ruth, who had just learned to spin two days before, stopped by to join me.  Isn’t she doing great?!

Spinning was demonstrated on the spindle as well as the wheel.  Sandy,        another knitter friend, stopped by with her wheel, and she wonderfully        showed how to ply two strands together.

There was a great turnout for the event.  Quite a few children were intrigued by the entire process.  In fact, one young fella (age about 3 y/o) was so entranced, he comfortably made himself a seat right on my lap as I spun.  Perhaps he too found the motion of the wheel very soothing.