March 19, 2021
We sheared our sheep at Hill-Stead this week, and that starts the process of deciding what to do with their wool. The day after shearing, we went on a fact finding mission to a store in Litchfield. The store owner showed us a new display of our rugs and throws – and said people absolutely love our products– but when asked, she did allow as how they'd probably love them even more if they were made with more gray and silver wool, as that seems to be the current decorating trend. “Rustic Farmhouse with contemporary color blends...”
We have lots of (“rustic”) brown/black sheep and not so many (“contemporary”) silver/gray, but we can allocate how we use their wool anyway we want, and we are, after all, determined to be on the cutting edge of any decorating trend. This prompted a conversation with our wonderfully talented weaver to see if she would make a small custom batch of silver, gray and white throws. She said she'd be happy to and told us exactly what weight yarn she would like to work with. That's the final piece of information we need to know in order to instruct the spinning mill, and to help decide how we will sort all the bags of fleeces that are still in the barn patiently waiting to be skirted.
Skirting is the (very) labor intensive process of picking out all the little bits and pieces in the wool that might not get washed away in the scouring process - and that we really don't want embedded in someone's sweater - like thistles, thorns, or the effervescent neon blue baling twine.
During the shearing process we put each fleece in it's own bag and label it with the name of the sheep. That way, when we have each fleece on the skirting table, we can evaluate the quality of the wool as an indicator of that particular sheep's health, and as a way to determine the best use for that sheep's wool.
This year the majority of our silver and gray fleeces are obviously destined to become throws.
The brown and black fleeces will be divided by the length of the fiber and it's crimp.
The longest fiber will be used for rug yarn, the finest for gloves and socks.
This year's lamb's wool, shorn from last year's lambs, will be divided into four distinct colors, spun into lace weight yarn, and woven into scarves and shawls.
By the time we finish all the skirting and sorting, the ground beneath the skirting table fills up with heavily soiled and rejected wool. We do try to collect and compost it all, but little clumps blow across our driveway (making their escape like miniature woolen tumbleweeds on the run), and since the skirting process always seems to coincide with our local bird population's nest building activity, we don't try very hard. Happily, every nest we encounter the rest of the year appears to have tufts of our wool woven through out it.
Unlike the interior decorators in Litchfield, the birds seem to have little preference between our silver/gray or our black/brown fleeces- they are content to line their nests with either. However, perhaps as an avian nod to a “post-modernism” decorating motif there is often a brilliant splash of neon blue baling twine woven in as well - presumably to keep the decorators happy and to offset the “farmhouse rustic” nest décor.