It’s been a busy weekend, so I’m just getting around to posting my latest adventure: sheep shearing. Every year, the Fiber Guild of the Savannahs, together with Oatland Island, put on a sheep-to-shawl event, where we demonstrate the process of shearing the sheep, carding the fleece, spinning the yarn, and weaving it into a shawl. The shawl is then raffled off to a lucky winner.

Having never sheared a sheep before, I volunteered to help. It’s kind of a bucket list thing. 🙂 It takes several people to wrangle a sheep and shear it. One person to hold the front legs, one to hold the back, another to whisper sweet nothings into the sheep’s ear, and a few more to help cut the fleece. Since this was a more of a historical reenactment, we sheared the sheep with handheld shears, not electric. The whole process took about an hour, though I’m sure professionals can do it a lot faster. It was a lot of fun, and I’ll definitely do it again next year!

These were REALLY sharp and pointy.

This is the first sheep, Cloud, before his haircut.

Progress shot! He had a lot of wool.

Cloud next to all his fleece.

The second sheep, Storm, with Cloud, post-shearing. They weren’t too happy to see me when I took this picture. 🙂