July 2016

July 2016

Something for the (school) holidays?

This is the very lovely educational sheep leading the way for a whole raft of educational and play activities now available on the British Wool Marketing Board website. They cater for early years, 5-7 and 7-11 as well as the whole family, by topic, and are great fun. I managed to complete a quiz with full marks!! So it's definitely a good thing ... and they even answer the most important question of all: How Long is a Ball of Wool?

Sue's lambs had their first hair-cut this week

The lambs grow wool quite quickly and it is the finest and softest they will produce (even from Nathalie!).

So here they are last week:

The larger, darker ones with longer tails are the cross-bred Gotland/Blue-faced Leicester lambs and the paler smaller ones with short pointed tails are pure Gotland.

And here they are this week!

The Story of St. Kilda

It is well known that the Boreray is at the top of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust watch list and that the Soay is still at risk (though thankfully its numbers haven’t dropped in the past year). Due to the small size, propensity to shed and rarity of these breeds they are not usually spun into a yarn as the commercial viability for small quantities is so limited.

Image courtesy of Back Forest Flocks

All of our Blacker Yarns are interesting in some way – sometimes it’s because of their provenance, especially with ties to the Westcountry, other times it is because of their natural (or dyed) colourways, but our really unique yarn is St. Kilda. Named after the island this yarn is a blend of Shetland, Soay and Boreray and consequently is not easy to produce!

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