Category: knitting

Well it’s shaping up to be a very busy month for us, work on spinning up this years fleece, knitting up something with the 2018 yarn and visiting a neighbouring Gotland Pelt farm (in Motueka, Nelson area) with an eye to finding a nice ‘ram’ for the flock for next year. On top of that we will squeeze in Christmas and New Year.

I have ten lots of fleece to process, plus two lots of 2018’s washed, carded and spun fleece (20 hanks of yarn approx 200g each hank) for either selling or knitting.

The two commercially spun fleeces l had done were Suzie’s, (top left example) and Chocolate’s (darkest grey on right) both from the 2018 clip.

The other examples of spun wool are from my collection of spinning this year from the latest clip.

I intend to knit up a couple of jerseys in the Guernsey style to see how the commercially spun wool knits, so watch this blog for photos of the knitting process.

Next week I will post photos of our trip to Motueka and the potential boy for next year.

Finished attending the spinning class in Christchurch; will continue to go to the group sessions as it’s a good chance for me to connect with like-minded people and to socialise.

The table runner below, is the first effort of spinning, plying and knitting a piece of the ‘girls’ fleece; Salt’s fleece from 2018 in fact. I intend to keep each fleece separate so that I can identify the individual animal when making a piece of clothing or item. I’m quite pleased with how this turned out, I still have a long way to go but it’s a start.

The rest of the month so far has been doing the chores around the farm; spraying, weeding, mowing etc so not a lot to talk about yet. I’m still waiting for the shearer to shear ‘everyone’ but it has been very wet here so that has meant a wait for us. The flock are getting a bit shaggy now and worried about the fleece but will have to work with what I get.

We are later than other parts of New Zealand as we are closer to the mountains, but finally we have evidence that the warmer weather is coming to us.

The farm work is increasing and the flock are growing their wool at a good rate. It will soon be time for them to be shorn, then my work will start: skirting (cleaning up the fleece), bagging and listing each fleece and marketing what I intend to sell.

Since the last post I have started spinning with a local group from Christchurch and completed an online shepherding course. Both have added to my knowledge on farming sheep and especially how to market the produces from the sheep. This will influence the running of the farm in the future.

The other part of farming is looking after the land as I believe we are only custodians during our time here. So, with that in mind, we are having our main paddock re-sown in grass for the future. This requires spraying the ground, waiting for the old grass to die off, then turning over the earth and resowing with new grass compounds, (well that’s the process) but I’m sure there is much more to it than that.

Now that the grass in that field has been sprayed ready for resowing, the flock are not suppose to be going into that field, but … as you probably know, teenagers do not necessarily respect boundaries put up for them.

Yesterday, all six teenage sheep decided the grass was greener on the ‘forbidden’ side of the fence, so they all climbed through the 7 strand fence to go and eat in Two Acre Field. The mammas, being responsible sheep after all, stayed in their paddock, where they were meant to be. It was very funny, if not a bit annoying, that the others decided to make a break for it. Just a note that the grass was not poisoned -that was not the issue – it was more the case that if the sheep eat the grass before it dies off, then the roots won’t die off.

Principal ringleaders of the ‘break out’ were Bob the sheep (in front), and four other chocolate coloured teens. They are all as big as their mammas now, and it’s hard to tell them apart. Pepper is the ewe on the right (the grey), and Suzie is at the back (lighter grey), with the two teen girls (her progeny).