Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Shearing day



We finished shearing this last weekend and the fleeces are soooo nice!! If anyone wants one, they are $15 a lb for adults and $18 a lb. for lambs. Let me tempt you…these fleeces deserve to be spun up into something sumptious, not sit in my studio waiting and waiting….for me to do something to them.

Here are the fleeces available. I don’t have photos or weights yet, perhaps I’ll get to that this weekend. These are all Icelandic.

Black:
Orange: Orange’s fleece is a dark black with only a small amount of grey in it. It is extremely long and thick. It’s medium in texture. This is a big fleece.
Shakti: Shakti’s fleece is a silvery black/grey, extremely curly and fluffy. It’s medium in texture.
Aurora lamb: THICK! and CURLY! This fleece is a black that is tinted a slight reddish/purple. Think about that shade of hair dye, and you’ll know what I’m talking about. This is an amazing lamb fleece, although it is slightly coarser than the greys. She’s mouflon, so there might be a tiny bit of lighter color around the belly and neck, but I think that got skirted away.
Grey:
Lamb Amidala: Oh, what a soft, soft fleece. Brown/grey, like butter. This is probably my favorite fleece of the whole group. She’s a decent sized lamb, but her fleece is very soft and fluffy, so there’s not a ton of it. This fleece is fine in texture.Lamb Aladdin: Amidala’s half brother, with virtually the same fleece. Aladdin’s a little boy though, so it’s a very small fleece. He's the brown/grey lamb in the photo.
Lamb Alonzo: Alonzo has a luscious fleece, fluffy black/grey.  He's the black/grey lamb in the photo. You can see how the outer coat is dark and the inner coat is very light grey.  Very pretty. He grew a lot of fleece with a lot of thel. Very fine fleece. This fleece is a very light silvery grey with black tog.

Brown:
Chewie: Chewbacca’s fleece matches her namesake. It’s a rich chocolatey brown, very long and thick. It’s somewhat on the coarser side of the adults, but still an exceptionally nice fleece.

White:
Bambi: Bambi’s fleece is ultra white, thick and dense. This one would be perfect for dying. There’s a lot of very nice fleece here. Her fleece is medium texture.
Aries lamb: Long and silky, with black spots. You could either separate the black and white parts or mix them. Very pretty fleece with ringlets. Medium-fine.
Sebastian: Lordy, what a fleece. Sebastian is our ram, and his fleece is immense. It’s white and brown spotted. VERY long staple. His fleece is somewhat coarse, because he’s a ram, but it’s exceptionally long and thick and lustrous.
Alpha lamb: Alpha’s fleece is like an angel’s feathers. That would be great except that earlier in the fall she stuck her entire body into a plant that was full of seeds, so quite a bit of it is going to have to be pitched. There’s a small amount of creamy white, ultra fine lambs fleece left.Leuci: Leuci was very sick early in the summer after her lambs were born, and we thought her fleece would be poor. She proved us very wrong. She grew a gorgeous, cream colored fleece any sheep would be proud of. Her fleece is medium fine and medium staple.