The world of Icelandic Sheep

Icelandic Sheep Market Place

20 April 2011The first of my flock's lambs for 2011 arrived last week, twin boys, one black & one grey. But the rest of the ewes aren't due to lamb till mid June!
The current warm weather (is this our summer?) has increased the number of sheep who are starting to lose their fleece, so I am "plucking" bits off them as often as possible as this will save me having to use the hand shears on them.
I am still playing with commercial yarn, currently eyelash yarn, but I have some very soft moorit lambswool drying that I plucked off my little ZeeZee that is calling to me to be spun .....

6 Jan 2011I am finally updating my baa-ings! I am still sorting/washing/carding fleeces from 2010. A very slow process which has now been made even slower by the addition of 2 Shih Tzu pups to the household.

I was busy crocheting more shawls with commercial yarn until their arrival! I find it interesting and educational to see how the yarn 'behaves'. I have tried several mohair blends of yarn as I want to mix the mohair from my own grey angora goats with some of my Icelandic fleece. I don't ply my spun yarn so I will blend it before and during the carding stages. It was going to be a productive winter but the demands of the pups came first! I will be updating my sales pages shortly.

During 2010 I set up FaceBook & Twitter pages for my sheep (a big adventure) but have found that I've had little time to chatter. Must try harder this year!

The Wool

Rare breed of sheep from IcelandI maintain a balance of earth colours within the flock of icelandic sheep, with few white sheep, as I prefer to spin and crochet natural colours, rather than dye the wool.  However I can never be certain what colour lambs nature will produce from any particular mating!  It makes lambing time very exciting.

Icelandic sheep have an unusual double-coated fleece that I love to turn into lopi wool.

Living the Dream

There is nothing nicer than watching my icelandic sheep of many colours browsing in the fields against a backdrop of Welsh hills and valleys.  Seeing their coats glint and glow in the sunlight is sheer magic.