Secret Knitting

Snow has returned, so it seems like the perfect day for the big reveal of the secret knitting.  Beginning with two skeins of our Bertha yarn (that had so many imperfections that they were not salable) here are the perfect lambing accessories.  Our love and admiration of Bertha is knit in to each and every stitch, along with the love and admiration I have for my Sister Shepherdess as I knit a set for her as a surprise gift.

The hand-warmers are the Lambing Mitts from the Tolt Yarn and Wool blog.  The garter band can be worn up to keep our fingers warm during the late night pasture checks, then rolled down when we need to attend to those newborn lambs.  Blue stripes on my sister’s and green stripes on mine so we will be able to sort them out when we lay them down in the barn.

Bertha’s yarn and scraps of our single-flock yarn make these extra special barn-life accessories.

The headband is mash-up of several different patterns knit in a Bertha yarn-dyeing experiment that was inspired by lichen growing on an Adirondack chair.  I think there will be more of this to come after lambing, as both shepherdesses are delighted with the result.  I added a little bit of hand embroidery to match the stripes on our hand-warmers.

An ode to Bertha and a surprise for my Sister Shepherdess – perfect for a snowy, April day.

Sheeps and Peeps Farm Mrs. Watson

Next up in our “What can I knit with my Sheeps and Peeps yarn?” series…

The Mrs. Watson Shawl by Martina Behm shown in our Sheeps and Peeps Farm Millspun Yarn.

We love the way the middle sister changed up the pattern and used two colors of our hand-dyed yarn along with our natural flock yarn.  Knit on size 8 needles, it is a little larger than the original pattern.  It’s such a fun, happy shawl, and has quickly become a favorite now that the weather has turned cooler.

Anatomy of a Cowl

Farm Grown – this cowl began its life on the backs of our beautiful Coopworth ewe, Havva, and our big guy Moe.   Havva and Moe were sheared and their wool was gently hand-washed. Havva’s wool was then hand-dyed, but Moe’s was left in its natural shades of brown. Their wool was then hand-picked, carded, hand-spun and plied. It is hand-knit on large needles to produce a lovely, light but very warm chunky cowl. 
From sheep to cowl… from our field to your home…

http://ow.ly/scdkw

Choose a Hogget

Butterfly Bush

We have a new shipment of hogget millspun due to arrive any day, so we are continuing our little Christmas in July theme with a Hogget Millspun Giveaway.  Simply comment on this blog post with the name of the yarn that you would like to win! 
Just in case you want to spoil yourself a little, we are continuing our Free Shipping – Promo Code SHIP4FREE in our Etsy Shop and also our Gift Shop!
Update: Comments are closed.  A winner will be announced shortly!

Heart and Soul

Neon Wow

Sunrise

Poseidon’s Millspun

Here’s our big guy, Poseidon, waiting to be sheared last spring.  Look at those beautiful, long, curly locks of wool – seven inches long, folks!

Once we got it on the skirting table… all 12 lbs 3 ozs of it… we realized that we have always sold this beautiful wool as a raw fleece.  After skirting 10 lbs 11 ozs remained, and we decided to send it off to Stonehedge Fiber Mill to be processed. 

And here it is!  A beautiful silvery grey with wonderful depth of natural color.  We’re still in the process of washing the 21 skeins, but we are so excited that we did get one listed in our Etsy shop.

We have one other skein ready to go.  And we’ve decided to give it to one of our lucky blog readers!  To enter the give-away simply comment on today’s post.  Comments will be closed on Sunday at 8 p.m. and the winner chosen by Random Number Generator. Good Luck!  Comments are closed, the winner will be announced shortly.
Comment #14 was chosen by the Random Number Generator.  Congratulations to Mountain Girl!