Saturday, July 12, 2008

Baa, baa, black sheep

Even since I got into Shetlands, I've wanted a black sheep! Well, meet Kaleidoscope Holly Orchid, a seven-year-old Greenholme Holly granddaughter and proven poll-carrier. "Inky" will be coming up in August from Susan Kimball's flock in California to join my little flock, and I'm excited to get her. She's had twins or triplets every year of her life and has some teeth troubles, but I'm hoping with loving care she will produce some nice polled lambs for me. Since she carries brown, I can get quite a range of color from her and Braveheart, too - black, moorit, grey and musket!

I must thank Tammy Knight, for it is only due to her patronage in buying Bella, Rechel and Bevin that I had the opening in my flock for this new ewe. Tammy is a Jacob sheep breeder that has become smitten with Shetlands in a big way; hopefully she'll soon have a blog to share photos of all her new treasures. :-) I happen to know that a very handsome fellow from Stonehaven Farm will be moving to Tammy's Wrensong farm to court the ladies this fall!

On the wheel: some very dark brown Shetland roving from Kalwa Taure Shetlands - thank-you to another Tammy!

On the needles: the baby surprise jacket I'm knitting for the baby shower in two weeks. No problem; I've past the halfway point!

That's it for now at . . .

9 comments:

Alaska Shetland Shepherd said...

congratulations on your new polled black ewe!! I'm sure your care will help those teeth too...enjoy! Oh, and the Blanchette is doing wonderful! She had an audience today that was more than happy to give her extra skritches....hehehehe....

sewbeezy said...

What a lovely black ewe! And all the color possibilities! My first ewe was a black ewe...Raven. She gave me a lovely horned moorit ewe one year....and twins this year. One of which is a black ewe. The other is a very lovely katmoget ram.

Love what is on your wheel. I've got a hand-painted polypay on my wheel right now....and am in the process of knitting my very first lace sweater with a shetland lamb/kid mohair hand-spun yarn.

A :-) said...

You are going to have such great fleece to spin!! I'm really excited for you :-)

Kara said...

Hey Michelle,
Lovely black ewe. I love my ba, ba, black sheep. My black ewe is also my poll carrier. I also like what you are spinning. What are you going to make with it? We should start trading knitting patterns that are good for hand spun yarn.

Tina - omme i London said...

LOL - other people buy yarn in a different colour and you buy a whole sheep! Fantastic colour on the spinning wheel and nice colour on the BSJ as well. You're just getting to the exciting point. :)

~~Sittin.n.Spinnin said...

Nice ewe! Nice color! Sounds like a lot of gene pool fun for you :)

Sharon said...

Congratulations on your black ewe! That baby sweater is absolutely the sweetest. I'm looking forward to the "rest of the story."

Tammy said...

It sounds like both you and Inky will benefit from the transition. Seven is not that old and you should be able to get several lambing seasons out of her. The benefit of having a small flock like yours is that you can give her the extra care she needs to compensate for her teeth issues. Rouen, my little black monster, er sheep is the oldest sheep here at 8 and she is still doing fine. I'm glad everything is working out for you to be able to pursue your polled goals.
Tammy

Jenny Holden said...

Happy new sheep! Your information about her made me laugh because I knew Greenholm Holly, it was her breeder, Jennie Hill, who got me into Shetlands as a teenager. I used to go and work on her farm and show her sheep :o)