Tag Archives: The Shepherd & The Shearer

Today is like Christmas and my birthday all rolled in to one because today, we are unveiling The Shepherd & The Shearer designs! Remember way back in November when I first told you about this crazy idea we had? Actually, I blather on so long that it took two whole posts to explain the idea.

But you guys got it! You totally understood what we were trying to do and you got on board to make this kooky dream a reality.

You know who else totally understood what we were trying to do? Kate Davies and Kirsten Kapur. Two amazing, rock star designers who enthusiastically embraced this idea and jumped in with both feet.

And now, without further ado, I present The Shepherd & The Shearer!

On the left is The Shepherd hoodie by Kate Davies and on the Right is The Shearer pullover by Kirsten Kapur. It was difficult deciding which sweater was named which, but in the end I think we got it perfect.

How can you not fall in love with The Shepherd and Kate Davies in it?

Who wouldn’t want to make and wear The Shearer every single day?

We are so happy that we can offer a limited number of kits in our new shop. The kits include yarn to make your sweater as well as a discount so you can get one of the two patterns for free – your choice (don’t forget to add it to your order)! You also have your choice for which kind of yarn you’d like – The Shepherd and The Shearer yarn that was milled specifically for this project and grown by small farmers along with Mid-Atlantic, or we have a very limited quantity of our 2013 colored flock yarn that would look amazing knitted up into one of these sweaters! Both were shorn by our Shepherd Emily Chamelin (who is back to shearing after her hand accident!). They were made to the same specifications just so that you could substitute them if you wanted.

We’re also offering the patterns as individual pdf downloads and we’re offering an ebook of the gorgeous booklet that our subscribers are receiving. It tells about the making of the yarn and the designing of the sweater and includes pictures of the process. You can find those items in our shop here.

We hope that even if you don’t purchase the patterns (or better yet the kit!) now, that you’ll favorite, queue, facebook, and pin these wonderful patterns. The designers deserve so much credit for creating beautiful patterns for our yarn and we’d love to see the patterns become wildly popular! We really appreciate your support in helping to send women to shearing school!

In case you’re still reading and not at the shop, here are some outtakes from the photoshoot – Jerry is such an attention hog (llama)!

The Shepherd photos courtesy of Kate Davies Design.

Last week I missed Tell Me Something Good Tuesday and I wished I had the pick me up for the rest of the week.

I have two somethings good. Susie is on her way back home from Scotland! We’ve been emailing while she’s away but it’s not the same as our daily phone calls. (Plus, I got pretty used to being with her in person 24/7 while we were away.)

My next something good is that Emily (and by Emily I mean Kevin while Emily sat next to him) drove the Shepherd & Shearer wool up to Canada and dropped it off at the mill! They still have a full summer’s worth of activities to do so they had to get a move on, and get the wool to Canada so they could accomplish the rest.

That’s a lot of wool! (Thanks for the photo, Emily!)

So folks, tell me something good! I want to hear it!

All up and down the coast this season, our wonderful shearer, Emily Chamelin, has been working magic with her two hands. And her back and her knees, and a thousand other parts of her body which I can only imagine must ache something fierce at the end of each day. She’s shorn and procured enough sheep from American farmers to satisfy the Shepherd and the Shearer commitments. In fact, it’s ready to head up the mill on Prince Edward’s Island! I’m pretty sure I’ve spoken to every Canadian about if there’s a tariff on wool, what paperwork needs to be filled out, who I should be speaking to, and again, if there’s a tariff on wool. I’ve been put on hold for hours and been redirected so many times I couldn’t keep track. But I handed off the paperwork to Emily, she had a trailer all lined up, and the mill was expecting us this weekend.

But unfortunately, on Tuesday, while shearing, a sheep kicked the hand piece of the electric blade into the back of her let hand. It severed the tendons to her middle and ring finger. After a lengthy wait at one emergency room without satisfactory care, she fortunately went to another hospital and had surgery to reattach the tendons on Thursday. She’s home now and beginning to long process to recover. She can’t shear any more sheep for two months and will then be going to hand rehab.

As I said earlier, all the Shepherd and the Shearer fleece is shorn and now we just need to figure out when and how the fleece is going to be brought to the mill, since Emily was all set to do it. The yarn may be a bit delayed because of this, but we do have all the wool ready to go. As soon as we know more about what’s going to happen, we’ll let you know.

But our biggest concern is for Emily. Shearing is her livelihood. She needs her two hands to do her work, and there are many farmers counting on her expert shearing to keep their livelihoods. She has a long road to recovery and being able to shear more sheep, I fear and I’ll be sending her all my good thoughts that she heals completely and well, no matter how long it takes. She was well cared for at the second hospital and they have great hand specialists, so I feel good that she’ll recover.

But in the meantime, please send her a kind thought, prayer, or mojo.

UPDATE: Emily and Kevin are their way north to deliver the fleece! Don’t worry, Kevin is doing the driving while Emily rests her hand and lets it heal! What troopers, eh?

One of the things Emily and I really want to do with The Shepherd and The Shearer is to show you what all goes into bringing the yarn you knit, crochet and weave with to the marketplace. I’ll be doing updates from time to time to give you a little sneak preview while we all anxiously await the arrival of the yarn and the books (with the full story) in September.

For shepherds, most of the winter is a waiting game. Waiting for the wool to grow. Waiting for the bred ewes to lamb. Waiting for the grass to turn green again.

Sounds like a relaxing season? Um, no. First of all there isn’t all that much less to do. Sheep need access to hay year round but it’s their primary diet in the winter months, so making sure they have access to fresh, clean, sweet hay is always a concern. If a shepherd is lucky enough to have the land to make his own hay in the summer, this is less of an issue, but more and more of us are buying hay these days, and it is not cheap.

Round bales (far and away the most economical way to feed sheep) have gotten so expensive that they are being stolen in the fields. I am currently paying $70/bale in Virginia (delivered), and I am happy to get it at that price.

People often ask why, with the price of hay so high, we don’t just switch the sheep to an all grain diet. Grain is certainly cheaper for sheep, but it wasn’t what they were designed to eat. Ruminants require hay to keep their digestive system work, so, while many shepherds feed supplemental grain in order to make sure their sheep are receiving enough nutrition, it’s not ideal as a primary source of calories.

And, of course, fresh clean water is required everyday. In winter this can mean using heated stock tanks that keep the ice away or hauling your hoses inside the house every night to prevent their freezing. Or it can mean getting doused with cold water every morning while you use a sledge hammer to break up the ice, depending on where you live.

The other thing that’s tough on shepherds in the winter is that, although there is a whole lot to worry about, there is nothing that we can actually do about those worries. Are the ewes bred? Well, they either are or they aren’t and nothing we can do now is going to change that. Is it getting below freezing enough nights to help off-set next year’s parasite load? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but nothing I can do is going to change the weather.

So, while there may be a little less to do in the winter, there is a whole lot less that can be done, which for me is incredibly frustrating and exhausting.

Meanwhile, on The Shearer’s side of this equation, Emily works her way west in the winter, where the shearing is done much earlier than in the cold parts of the country. She just finished a long stint in New Mexico and won’t be back here until March, when the East Coast shearing will commence.

I’ve gotten lots of emails asking if we still have space in The Shepherd and The Shearer and the answer is YES! We have about 30 spaces left and we would love to have you. I am working on an option that would allow participants to make smaller payments once a month, rather than the one time $250 (which can be steep for some of us) and I will have it ready to go no later than Wednesday, if there are spaces still available by then.