Global Warming and New Fleeces

Well, you know that it is staying warmer than usual, when the animals are not getting bred. Does are going into heat, whacking the fences, and beating heads, because the bucks are not going into rut. I will be forced to start keeping yearling bucks, because they do go into rut earlier. I would rather not, since I prefer to keep animals that I can handle, but it seems like the does are breeding later every year. I will be surprised, if I have kids on the ground by the spring wool festival on March 27 2010.

I am busy washing fleeces. The one featured below is off a Shetland ram. he appeared all black until shearing. Carded up, his fleece will be a very soft gray.
The kid mohair fleece below is Ruby's and full of trash. She is one of the Witch's kids and has one of the softest black fleeces from the most recent crop. The trash gives me the opportunity to spin it and I am now designing a wrap that I will knit and call Ruby's Wrap. I will keep you posted on my progress.

It is kind of funny how we seem to gravitate every year to the same colors at the same time of the year. I end up spinning black and purple each year in the fall. As I was planning my wrap, I was thinking of purple and charcoal. As I spun up the first batch, I realized that it was the same combination that I used for a vest three years ago. Ruby's is the gray roving on top. I am knitting a scarf with the samples and experimenting with patterns and design elements that I will use in my wrap. I plan to publish the scarf pattern.