Breeds of Sheep Guild meeting January 2018

Our January topic was Breeds of Sheep, presented by Dawn. In her Sheepish report Dawn mentioned there are 200 Breeds of sheep worldwide. In the USA there were 56 million sheep in 1945 and in 2003 we only had approximately 7 million sheep in the USA. She talked about the fiber diameter and softness. The wool characteristics to be aware of and she had some lovely wool fleece samples from each major group of sheep, which we examined and compared.
If you want to know more about Sheep Breeds Dawn recommended the book 'Fleece and Fiber Scorcebook' by Robson and Ekarius.

Dawn's blue woad dyed and felted hat

Dawn had a number of knit and felted hats to share today. I was only able to get pictures of the blue one that Hanna is holding and the red one Dawn modeled for us. Although she was quick taking it off, this one was called the multi fisherman and is a Zimmerman pattern. The yarn was dyed with Madder root.

Rust hat

She also brought two visitors who came to Calumet to spend some time felting with her. They also did a little skiing. Jenna showed us her felted horse blanket made with churro wool.

Hanna's Churro horse blanket

While Sam came with a pair of boots she wanted to make liners for and

a lovely pair of liners she made to fit inside her beautiful leather boots. A ball of wool dyed with walnut hulls and a head band knit and felted.

Sam with liners for her boots

 

Hanna's walnut wool, felted boot liners and headband

 Phyllis brought in a weaving she called 'Looking out the Sauna Window'

it was woven on painted warp with various color wefts to reflect the view from the sauna.

 Mary had a sample of a weaving on a Yak warp that was dyed with indigo and woven with various wefts of Habu paper yarn, Silk ribbon and other yarns. Unfortunately the warp was too weak to hold up for the weaving, so after many broken warp threads she removed it from the loom and kept the sample as a record of what not to do. The yak was just not strong enough for this weaving.

indigo Yak war

scarf with North Ronaldsay wool

This scarf was knit from a web site that gave video instructions for the knitting patterns. Knit Purl Hunter was the website and the pattern was 'Behind the Scenes' The yarn was from North Ronaldsay Island in Scotland and the sheep on the island roam near the Sea and eat Seaweed from the shores.  The wool is unbelievably soft. 

She also has been spinning some Shetland wool that was dyed by a friend from Kewaunee, WI.
 

Shetland wool hand spun

Kathie wove a beautiful piece of fabric for Prosphora bread bags for her son's church. It is unleavened bread used for communion for the Eastern Orthodox Church. The pattern is From the Davidson 4 shaft book. the pattern is by Oelsner.

Kathie's fabric

Kathie's close up

John found a couple of knit lace doilies from 1940 that

were made by his Great Grandmother. We all enjoyed seeing these finely knit Doilies..

 Clare is planning our MLH sample and she did not have show and tell but she is very happy with her Mason Bag she found at Harbour Freight. It is Plenty big enough for her knitting projects.

Our next meeting will be February 19th and Anita has offered to do some drop spindle spinning and will bring more wool samples for us to explore.
For our March meeting Phyllis is going to surprise us with a presentation.

Time to start working on your Buellwood Best project for the May meeting.