Shetlands

Now, I don't know if you all know this, but I grew up with sheep and goats. None of them were the variety that had anything beautiful that could be spun. The goats were dairy goats and the sheep were the kind where you sent the males (or, actually the used to be males) to the "shipping yard." I still think about getting sheep again sometimes and this time getting some that we could use their wool, but that would mean re-fencing and also our property has issues with burdock (or so called "vegetable matter." I always laugh a little when I see the words vegetable matter, as though the sheep got a little too close to the carrots and broccoli in the garden. They were in the weeds-the burdock and other sticky stuff-or at least ours were). When I have worked with handspun, which has only been a little bit, I am amazed how clean those sheep were kept and applaud the sheep farmers for their wonderfully mostly weed free farms!
Here's a pic of some of our sheep (The one in the sort of middle with a really white face is Ewe-nice. Not pictured are some more of my favorites like: Nose, Killer, Aretha, and Mouth)

So, anyway, why is this post called Shetlands? I just got some local handspun shetland wool with which I am going to make some mittens. Here are the little balls of wool lounging in the gallery window.

And why am I mentioning the names of some of my old sheep? Well, when you take a little closer look at this in-its-natural-state-wool, you will notice that they each have some pretty special names:)

I look forward to making some double-colored Posey, Molly and Shona mittens and will make sure to show my finished product to their proud human mother!