As a relative newcomer to the world of sheep keeping I was looking forward to reading Adventures in Yarn Farming (which I received as a gift at Christmas). Barbara Parry describes her transition into farming life in New England and how she converts sheep fleece into high quality knitting yarn. The book is hardback and beautifully presented with lots of photographs.
The story starts with the wool clip and follows the year of the sheep through the seasons. I found it interesting and reassuring that the story sounded familiar and that I'm at least doing some of the same things. There were some differences in timings in the year for certain activities. The most striking difference though is the effort she goes to keeping the sheep fleeces clean and succeeding (whilst still on the back of the sheep). My Shetland sheep usually look as though they just emerged from a rummage in the bottom of the compost heap, so there's some work to do.
Here's a video taster of the book...
There are 8 knitting patterns and other projects for spinning, weaving and dyeing in the book. But I really enjoyed this book more for it's description of lifestyle changes and it's honest look at the hard work that goes into producing yarn from sheep fleeces.
Enjoy!
