Sheep in my Heid

I'm dreaming of sheep in all sorts of colours.

I've decided to spin some yarn for a Sheep Heid, a colorwork beret in 9 natural sheep shades. The nice thing about it is it only needs about 10g of each color. So, it was the perfect opportunity to dive into my spinning stash and pick out some great British wool.

My nine shades are -

White: Shetland, from J&S
Cream: Kerry Hill, from Rosewood Farms
Beige: Boreray, from Spirit Trail (RBST 1 - Critical)
Grey: Bluefaced Leicester, from Wingham
Light Moorit: Castlemilk Moorit, from Spirit Trail (RBST 3 - Vulnerable)
Dark Moorit: Manx Loaghtan, from Parvabrook (RBST 4 - At Risk)
Brown-Grey: North Ronaldsay, from Scottish Fibres (RBST 2 - Endangered)
Very Dark Brown: Soay, from Parvabrook (RBST 4 - At Risk)
Black: Hebridean, from Parvabrook

Everything is from my stash except the 3 breeds from Parvabrook. They offer whole fleeces, prepped fiber, and yarn from several different breeds, and purchasing from them was a smooth process. The Hebridean and Manx were both smooth and great to spin. I especially liked the Hebridean - it's somewhat scratchy, but something about it makes it really pleasurable to spin. The Soay is more of a challenge, being shorter, more bitty, and having more veggie matter in it. I don't mind, though - for such a hard-to-find breed, I will take what I can get!


A couple of the other breeds I'm using were sourced from Spirit Trail Fibers during my last visit to the US. It did feel a bit silly bringing home British wool from America, but I was placing an order anyway and these were some breeds I hadn't encountered in an already-prepped form back in the UK. (I also picked up some of their Hog Island, Gulf Coast Native, and CVM roving.)

The spinning is going quickly, but I'm not sure when I will actually be able to cast on. I have a lot of projects on at the moment, and a lot more I want to make... It's only a hat, so hopefully it will be pretty quick, but it is an intricate stranded colorwork hat, so maybe not.

~Joyuna