Category: Blog

Some friends of our just took a cruise around South America (38 days- major trip). One of the places they stopped was the Falkland islands. While in port in the Falklands, Margaret took a trip ashore to visit a sheep farm. Here’s her report:

“Today (day 9) we are anchored in Port Stanley, capital of the Falkland Islands, S51°,40’, W57°50’. The sun was shining, the sea slight and the wind moderate. I had to get up early for a trip to a sheep farm. Archie couldn’t go as we had to go by tender (which double as life boats) and we expected that there would be quite a bit of walking involved. The ride to shore was about 20 minutes and the drive to the farm almost an hour through rather desolate country. It is mostly barren with huge rivers of rocks. The island population is about 2500 with only about 200 living outside of Port Stanley. The islands are British and cars – of which there are very few- drive on the left side of the road. In 1982, Argentine forces invaded and occupied the islands for 10 weeks before being defeated by the British. The British still hate the Argentinians who come to the island wanting to plant their flag there only to get chased away. Not sure why they want the Falklands so badly except that there are oil deposits offshore but no one has tried to drill for any as it is too difficult and expensive.

Anyway, the sheep farm was very interesting. It is located on 2300 acres of East Falkland farmland which supports over 3000 sheep, 70 cattle, 28 horses, 7 sheepdogs, 12 chicken and 3 cats. They grow their own vegetables and use hand cut peat to fuel the house and the cook stove. They showed us how they cut the peat and then sheared two of the sheep, saddled a horse and invited us to tea and coffee in their cozy kitchen.”

And here are the sheep who “volunteered” for the shearing demo:

Before-

During-

And after-

Margaret asked if she could get some raw wool to bring back for me,, but was advised that it probably wouldn’t make it through customs. Oh well.

But, she did snag some yarn for me in Peru!

It is a big hank (10.5 oz, about 250 yards), rather rusticly spun, and still had quite a bit of lanolin in it.

First I balled it up,

Then I re-skeined it and washed it lightly to relax it some (it was kinda kinky) and get rid of the slightly waxy feel

Here it is drying on our not-yet-blooming cherry tree-

And here it is, all freshly washed and dried.

I unspun a little bit to get a look at the fibers, and they are fairly fine, and only about 2 inches long. Don’t know what type of sheep they’d have in Peru. Anyone? Anyone?

Project #1: The fencing. With the gates up now I feel like we’re really getting there! Can’t you just imagine little woolly bodies out there chomping away?

Project#2: Spinning replacement Border Leicester for Experimental Sweater:

Project #3: Ted the Bear, minus arms-

I’ve made this little bear about 5-6 times now, and it’s a really good pattern. It’s Blue Sky Alpacas’ “Bobbi Bear”, but made with Lamb’s Pride bulky on size 8-9 needles. So instead of turning out almost two feet tall, he is maybe 10 inches high. Also make some other mods to the head, leg and arm shaping.
He’s a real cute little guy once you put some ears and a face on him. Placement of the facial features is the key to making him look friendly and happy. Will post more photos once he’s complete!

These three things are inevitable.

1. This weekend,  3 of our poor, long-suffering goldfish bit the dust. Scooped the little buggers out the pond yesterday.

2. Waited until the last minute this year, but got the taxes filed this morning, and

3. Finally mustered the courage to unknit a good portion of the Experimental Sweater. It’s not surprising that there is a need to unknit, seeing as it is an experimental sweater, and I’m figuring this thing out as I go. But it was hard to do, because I had pushed through and pretty much finished the knitting on it before I came to terms with the fact that the yarn I chose was just Not Quite Right.

Right color.
Wrong weight.

It just wasn’t hanging correctly. Felt to heavy at to bottom to be swingy, like I imagined it.

So I’ve ripped.

And now I must start again-

But, the wonderful thing about knitting is, you can always have a do-over.

Denise out.

This weekend we had 2 days of beautiful weather- which means I am almost too pooped to blog. But I had to put up some photos to document the fact that Spring Has Arrived (finally). Some of the things springing up around here—

Peonies:

Rhubarb:

((I probably just jinxed us))

Even though the blog has been focused mostly on new fleece acquisitions in recent weeks, I have been getting some knitting in-

Presenting Miami socks and coordinating Tassel Hat (which you’d probably never have a need for in Miami):

And Roman Holiday socks:

Roman Holiday socks are so named because a friend of mine went to Rome in March and brought me back two beautiful balls of Italian 8ply merino superwash wool as a souvenir!

Wool. Always the perfect gift.

Anyway, I carried the Italian wool around with me for a while, trying to figure out how I wanted to use the two colors together, then I just made up what I think is kind of a cool pattern. Here it is a little closer:

I almost think I like the wrong side better, though-

I think they’re going to be pretty schnazzy.

In other news, we did some more work on the fencing this weekend-

And while it is exhausting work,, I’m mighty pleased to be doing it. Each H-brace brings me a little closer to having sheep.

Knit on!