some people say it's valentine's day

Some people say it's Valentine's Day this coming Sunday. I won't argue with the calendar, but I will quibble with whether or not you can really say its Valentine's Day if your sweetie is out of town, or if you're single.

Hear me out. Most of the Valentine's Days of my past have been spent as a singleton, cutting out pink and red crepe paper hearts in the middle of my apartment floor with, perhaps, a sad romantic comedy to keep me company. (Sorry, Tom Hanks, it was me, not you.) Or worse yet, snuggled into the corner of my sofa with a stack of poetry books making wobbly copies of my favorite poems.


This year finds me not single (ironically) yet still alone. I fall into the 'sweetie out of town' category so I am forced to come up with substitute to the traditional Valentine's Day. Luckily, my parent's have offered me an appealing alternative to sitting home all alone or overworking myself at the studio.

They're shearing sheep this weekend.

Imagine a clean barn filled with fresh straw, piles of soft wool and freshly shorn sheep. It's always exciting for me to get my hands on this year's wool. I wonder what colors our sheep will produce this year? I know my mom's looking for a certain hue.

As you can see, I like to apply my own colors to our fiber. This roving has already been spun into a fingering weight single ply, intended to be knit into socks for my sister.

Looking ahead, we should be greeting our first lambs sometime in the beginning of March. Keep posted for pictures and stories.

New Threads

It's been a busy week here at Tendril & Twine, but I want to keep you all up to date with things down at the barn. In an earlier post I briefly described shearing day and posted some photos. After a run under the buzzer the sheep are covered again (in vastly smaller coats) and we start to look forward to our spring lambs. (We're expecting our first arrival around March 14.)

Here's a photo of Julia checking out the bags of fiber lined up in the barn. I always wonder what the sheep think when they are released, pounds lighter, without the four inch layer of padding they've been accumulating for twelve months. Do they miss it? Are they relieved? Will they get chilly? This year the temperature dipped below zero the weekend of shearing, but the sheep seemed to manage.

Here's a close up of Julia's lovely gray-blue fiber. I can't wait to get my hands on it.

Shearing Day

CVM Romeldale fiber--Just look at the natural colors!

Just looking at this fiber makes my feet tap in tune with the imagined rhythm of my spinning wheel and my fingers itch to get started on knitting projects that have been waiting for this beautiful fiber. Shearing day on our farm is the culmination of my mother's hard work. Twelve months of making sure the sheep are properly coated and cared for. Twelve months of chasing them through pastures and luring them closer with sweet alfalfa hay for "photo shoots" and chin scratches.

We call this Butterball Alley--they won't be butterballs for long!

The morning of shearing day we remove the ewe's coats and herd them into a side alley of the barn. From there they will be escorted one at a time onto a clean bed sheet (to catch their valuable fleece), sheared, and then released to dash through a layer of fresh straw spread out in an adjacent paddock. None of the ewes dash too much, however, they are all expecting lambs in a little over a month.

Julia & Penny

For the first time we can see their pregnant bellies, which have been hidden under fiber and canvas all fall and winter, and admire the unique color of their fleeces. Very pretty mamas.