Speaking to Mountains

July 22, 2014

mousearmymittenco:
“ ONE SHEEP YARN.
This little stack of yarn (and yarn-as-sweater, or sweater as yarn-representative) represents the entire finished Spring 2014 fleece from one Shetland ewe. Even the dark grey-on-grey skein is from that single...

ONE SHEEP YARN.
This little stack of yarn (and yarn-as-sweater, or sweater as yarn-representative) represents the entire finished Spring 2014 fleece from one Shetland ewe. Even the dark grey-on-grey skein is from that single sheep, who as a katmoget has just a tiny bit of dark pattern wool in the (nicely skirted when it got to me) handspinner’s fleece.
Shetlands are tiny compared to most of the sheep you see in the American West, which tend to be dual-purpose or meat breeds. They don’t usually get taller than Small Dog, and their fleeces aren’t the weighty 16-pound monsters you get from some other wool-producing breeds that are bigger. But as I only hoped to get one adult-sized sweater out of this,I am totally stoked and every remaining skein is a bonus.
TOTAL WOOL YIELD FROM ONE SMALL SHEEP! One Season’s Shearing! About 2 pounds of wool before washing!
1 skein dk weight grey (woolen spun, 80-100 yards; I didn’t count)
1 skein beige-grey dk weight, woolen spun, 100 yards and a bit
1 full skein fingering weight
1 nearly-full wound-off skein fingering weight
1 mini skein fingering weight (50 yards, roughly)
1 mini skein dk woolenspun (10 yards)
1 adult-sized sweater
One Sheep Sweater looks somewhat worn because it is somewhat worn; I finished it in June and have worn it constantly through a cool summer, whenever a sweater’s been called for. I think I even slept in it once. Because I am hard on my clothes, I think - trying to make the best of it - that I am an ideal durability-tester, and I am trying to be as rough as possible on this. It gets a lot of wear. There are two real proper handmade self-made woolen sweaters in my wardrobe now, replacing factory ones that wore out, and that’s a pretty good feeling.

(via fiberfingers)

1:34pm | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZObLBv1MCFmOp

(Notes: 47)