Sheep to Shawl - March 31, 2012

I'm sure I've mentioned here before that we are CSA members at a local(ish) farm; Live Earth Farm.  We get a weekly veggie box and know exactly where our organic veggies are from.  Another perk of our CSA membership is that there are fun community events at the farm, like when we went tomato picking in August.  But not all the events are related to food!  The Sheep to Shawl event was an educational event that not only showed the process that wool goes through, starting with shearing the sheep and ending with knitting, crocheting, weaving, and felting, but also let kids and adults participate in a lot of the steps (but not the actual shearing - that was left to the professional).

We arrived just as the first sheep was getting sheared, so we watched for a while.  It was a little rougher than I had imagined with the shearer pretty much tackling the sheep to get them clipped.  Some poor sheep even had big purple antiseptic spots where they had clearly been nicked with the clippers.  Ouch!








We were also able to pet the sheep in their pen, which the kids loved!  RJ especially loved the lambs that were running around with the big sheep (the lambs got to keep their wool though!).  Unfortunately he kept scaring them trying to pet them.  And they kept hiding behind the big sheep, which frustrated RJ and Logan.

The shorn wool was left around in a pile for exploration and relaxation.

The wool was also used in the processing stations.  RJ and Logan skipped the washing station where fresh wool was handwashed and dried but were interested in other aspects of processing.



RJ was more interested in carding the wool, where he had to pick knots and missed debris out of the wool and then brush it between what I can only describe as two wire cat fur brushes.  This made it nice and fluffy and separated the fibers. His friend Maddie also enjoyed carding as you'll see in the video below!

Then we were off to the dyeing station, where he took his newly carded wool, soaked it in vinegar, put it in a bag with food coloring, then microwaved it.  He repeated this entire process until he had one of each color (red, yellow, blue, green).

RJ was also fascinated by the woman making yarn at a spinning wheel.

We (really me) also made a wool ball using felting techniques.  I made the ball from wool, RJ added the orange wool, and then sprayed it with soap solution.  Then, I was charged with the task of gently petting the soapy wool ball until it was felted. It takes 3-4 hours, but I had to finish it later because my hands were freezing from being wet and soapy in the cold rainy weather.  (The event was held in the open air barn.)




Logan enjoyed seeing the sheep, particularly once he knew the name of the last sheep to be shorn: Tinkerbell.  He kept saying, "Tinkerbell get haircut!".  However, he was much more interested in the mud puddles from the rain and the big farm dog than the wool processing activities.  He was super happy when Ashley lent him Maddie's old boots that were in their car and could splash around in the big puddles (Yes, we're idiots and didn't bring the kids boots even though it was pretty evident that it was going to be a muddy rainy day - doh!) .

And finally, both RJ and Maddie learned how to finger knit at the knitting station.

Both kids also enjoyed talking to the sheep in the truck, as you'll see in the video below.

More pictures from Sheep to Shawl are here.