sheepshaving

As a felter I work with mostly wool. Wool which I normally buy in a shop. It is washed, carded and dyed.  Two years ago I learned how to felt with raw unwashed wool from Heidi Greb. And since that time I love to work with raw wool too.

Last december I did a presentation at a Pecha Kucha evening and one of the other speaker’s father had about 100 sheep to keep for “Limburgs landschap” a nature care organisation.  They have “Mergelland” sheep  a local breed of sheep which was nearly extinct some years ago, but because of their efforts now back to a good number. He said to me call me in March and you can join me one day. So I called and made an appointment.

Today was the Day! My husband, my oldest daughter, our niece and our nephew went along. I made sure to have something to eat and drink with us so nothing could be in our way of having a nice day. Even the weather was promissing a nice day: sunny and warm.

The small group of sheep all with their wool still “on” and than we started shearing theis sheep with 2 people at the same time.  Soon our hands and arms felt like lanoline too, so soft , but sticky. Washed very easilyy off in some cold water.

This was the coat of one sheep!! and as we shaved 3 sheep I was able to take one and a half fleece like this home

After we were done shearing we had some nice “Vlaai” to eat  and went off to take this small group to another place to stay. Kids and us after the sheep. They loved it!!

Our area is so beautyful and  stupid thing is: we always want to go far away, but we have so many nice things to see here as well….  should do this more often:  explore our area.

We continued feeding the other flocks of sheep. These were with lambs, so cute . We had to catch 2 sheep , one needed medicine and the other needed to get her nails cut.

Conclusion: we had a Super day everybody really enjoyed it. Tomorrow I ‘ll be going to felt in Germany… Cannot wait to get felting with these fleeces.

schaapscheren, shaering Hide