Sheep, Yarn, and Colorwork: The Natalie and Lilac Beanie & the Story Behind Spoiled Sheep

Hi, you guys. Welcome to our live event. My name is Brenda Kb Anderson. I am a knit designer and crochet designer and yarn enthusiast and I am going to be joined today by my friend Katrina Walker who is here to talk about her sheep. So this is gonna be really fun event. I am gonna be walking you through the construction of this beanie here. This is the Natalie and lilac beanie named after the sheep who gave us this yarn. Um And those are those sheep are from Katrina's ranch. So this is just gonna be a really fun, just a fun live event. I welcome you guys to pop in and say hi if you wanna add any, you know, comments to what we're talking about, throw those in the chat box if you have any questions for myself or for Katrina, definitely put those in the chat box as well. We would love to hear from you. We're just so excited to be sharing this with you guys and yeah, we just welcome your comments and questions. So, um without further ado, I'd like to introduce my friend Katrina Walker. Here's Katrina. Do you wanna say a little bit about yourself, what you do and why you're here today. Why am I here today? Well, I have so. Hello, I am Katrina Walker and welcome to my studio, as you, as you might guess. Actually, my, my main role, my main job is I'm actually, um, a professional in the home sewing industry. And so I'm a fellow craft sea instructor and have classes on garment construction and machine embroidery on craft Sea and do a lot of teaching online and it shows and things. So, so the sheep are, are my other job. And so it's, it was really fun because I get to actually really fangirl on Brenda because, uh I actually, I've been a knitter for a long time. I spin, I tat, I do do needle filtering. I do a lot of things. But, um, I'd never learned to crochet and, um, I'm also Clover's tour school instructor. So of course, we launched some new or needed, wanted to highlight, um, some of our, our crochet hooks. And so of course I had to learn to crochet so I could actually do it on camera. And so, so thank goodness for Brenda because I can now crochet and those Clover Amo hooks are my absolute favorite. So I'm glad you can use them finally because they're just so awesome. Yay. I, oh, go ahead. Oh, I was just, that was pretty much it. So, yeah. So, so I'm a, you know, a, a, an author and an educator and designer by day and a sheep herder the rest of the time. So she wears a lot of hats. This is Katrina. Ok. Well, I was thinking, I'm gonna start out by talking a little bit about this pattern and we're gonna get going on this and we're gonna kind of go back and forth between me showing you steps on the beanie and then Katrina talking about sheep. Um, and you know, the process of making, you know, going from sheep to a yarn skein. Um So just to begin this, I wanna introduce you to this hat. This is the Natalie and lilac beanie. Of course, like I said, they're named after the sheep. Those are the sheep's names. Um This right here is the lilac and this one is Natalie here. They're super adorable and I wanted to have pictures of them here just to make it seem like more real. That's one of the things that I noticed when I, one of the things I was thinking about when I was designing this hat, I already knew what the pictures. I, I already had the pictures of the sheep when I got the yarn from Katrina. And it just made it seem like more personal to me to actually know exactly where this wool came from, which is just something amazing about, you know, now nowadays, it's like we're so disconnected from where stuff comes from. We, we don't know who grew our food or where the, you know, materials came from our clothes. Most people don't even think about that at all. So this is just kind of an interesting way to look at things to slow down your you're crafting and to actually feel like more connected throughout the whole process, which is really cool. So for this project, I wanted to showcase the different colors or at least two of the colors that uh Katrina had sent me. We have this beautiful black and then this lighter kind of cream color yarn that she sent me and I wanted to do some color work with it. And I have to say it's so crazy like I'm, I'm very much used to commercial yarns and having my yarn be dyed and all that. And this is natural, the natural colors of the sheep right here. These are not the black is not dyed, this is not bleached, it's just, these are the colors of the sheep. And so even all the way up through the blocking portion of this, this hat I have kept having to remind myself like, oh yeah, this is not dyed yarn. This is actually the color of the sheep's wool. So I just think that's really cool. All right. So for this project, we are going to, it's a knitted project and we're going to be working um in the round and we're gonna be using um our circular needle and we're gonna switch to double point needles later. Um And as far as materials go, of course, you're gonna need those two con highly contrasting colors, a light in the dark and I used about 100 and 45 between 100 and 45 and 100 and 85 yards of the main color, which is the lighter color. You need a little bit more of that because the folded up ribbed brim is in that color as well. And then you need somewhere between 67 and 84 yards of the contrasting color of the darker color here. Um And then you'll ne need two different sizes of circular needles. We're gonna start off with a US size two, which is the 2.75 millimeter circular needle that's for the brim, the ribbing. And then we're gonna switch that up once we start working on the slip stitch pattern, which is the color work section up here. We're gonna switch to a larger needle. So we're gonna be using a US size four which is a 3.5 millimeter uh needle for that. And then when it gets too small to be working on your circular needle, we're going to be switching to double point needles. You're gonna need four, double point needles in a size four. And that's a 3.5 millimeter size as well. And then I would recommend using a stitch marker to mark the beginning of your round. I like using a locking stitch marker because if I have to stop as I'm knitting on my circular needles and I ended, you know, right at the stitch marker, then I can take my stitch marker and lock it through the fabric instead of just having it sliding around on my needle. But you can just, you, if you don't have locking stitch markers, of course, that's totally fine. You can just use, you know, the ring style that, that'll work just fine. Ok? And then I, I wanted to mention that the yarn that I'm using, of course, this is the yarn from Katrina's Ranch. It is called Spoiled Sheep. Um And there is a link to get to her website and on her website, there is a link where you can buy the yarn that has been updated in case you guys were looking yesterday or the day before that has been updated with a new link that'll lead you to the page where you can purchase the yarn if you're interested in that or if you just wanna kind of check it out and look at it in a little more detail. Ok. So I'm gonna get started with, you know, you can use whatever kind of semi stretchy cast on you want. I like to use a German long tail cast on because um, it just, I don't know, it's just kind of my go to these days. Let me see here just gonna grab this. Ok. So I'm gonna be casting on. Don't look at the size of these needles. These are a little big. I should be casting on to my size two circular needle. So this is a 16 inch circular needle. These are actually a little bigger than a size two, but that's what I have because my size twos are being used for my future steps here. So ignore the thickness of my needle and I'm just gonna get you guys started. I, I believe there is a video for the German cast on, on the the knitting circle website. So you can check that out if you need a little more detail. But I usually start mine with a slip knot and I would give yourself about three yards or so of, of a tail before you make your slipknot or you can just kind of twist your yarn. I think a lot of people do that to start out this cast on. So I've got the yarn that's connected to the ball right here on this side. And this is just my longer tail that I've already pulled off. And in order to do the cast on, we're going to swoop underneath these two and go up and catch that. And then we're gonna go across to this one, grab that and pull it through that tiny little triangle there and then I'm gonna release with my thumb and tighten that up. Not, not too tight. But just kind of snug it up next to the needle. So we'll do that again. So we're gonna go under here, go up down through that hole from, you know, from the top view, we're gonna go on top of this strand and pull that strand through the tiny triangle and let your thumb go and tighten that up a little bit. So I'll do that one more time. So we go under both over the top, bring it over to the other side, go down through here and bring it through that little tiny triangle like that. OK? And like I said, you can do a different cast on it if you want to. That's just how I like to start mine. And I just wanted to give you a quick, you know, show and tell how to do that to get you started. Um So you're gonna be casting on different amounts, of course, for the different sizes. Oh, let me back up. So there's three different sizes for this hat. The ribbing is extremely stretchy. Um So don't be fooled by the small circumferences on the ribbing, but let's see, the, the body of the beanie. So that's like the slip stitch pattern section. So that will measure 7, 17.75 21 inches or 21.75 inches. It's all in centimeters as well in your download. Um You know, if you think in centimeters it's all listed there too. Uh So those are the different sizes that we've included. And I would recommend finding a size that measures the same size as your head or up to two inches smaller than your head circumference so that it has to stretch up to two inches to fit you. So, somewhere in there it's a, you know, pretty loosey goosey. There's two whole inches there to kind of play with. Um, it's a fairly stretchy hat. Ok. So I've gotten, you know, I'm actually doing a very small version of this hat. This is just a sample. This is, you'll have a lot more stitches put on here before you start. But you guys don't need to see me doing, you know, a million stitches of the same thing. So I just cast on like about half of what I need. And so I'm just gonna start by knitting. I have my, this is the strand connected to the ball here and I'm going to start by knitting the first stitch through the back loop. So that normally we knit right here through the front loop, but we're just gonna put our needle through the back loop and then we're gonna knit that stitch and then the next stitch we're gonna pearl just like how we normally do. So pearl, the next stitch we're gonna knit through the back loop. So this is knit through the back loop. Pearl as you regularly would knit through the back loop. Pearl as you regularly would right here and you're just gonna continue doing that all the way around and around and around and around and around for many rounds because I wanted the brim to be really long. I wanted it to fold up on top of itself. So it's extra thick. Um Because the slip stitch pattern that we're gonna be working on later is fairly thick and cushy and warm and I wanted to make sure that the brim was warm as well. So, knitting that through the back loop is gonna twist your stitch, which makes it a little tighter, which makes your ribbing wanna spring back a little more and it gives those nice um ridges in your ribbing here. Let me pull this in. So you can see. So this is what it'll look like. So you can see those very distinct r ridges right there and this has not been blocked yet. This is just a sample in progress. So things are gonna smooth out a little more, but you can see those very distinct ridges there from uh twisting, those twisting those knit stitches. OK. So you're gonna just continue working that around and around and around until you've worked. I can't remember maybe 32 rounds or so, or to you the desired length that you wanna work on. And then the next section is going to be um, well, we're, we're gonna do one thing to prep us for working in the slip stitch section. OK. So just imagine that this piece was much longer here. And I've been working in my knit through the back loop pearl knit through the back loop ribbing here. Um It is not gonna be the same on both sides because we're just twisting every other stitch. So if you look at the back, it's not gonna look the same because we're knitting this hat with this ribbing on the outside. This is what I actually wanna see when I fold it up. Oh Let me, let me bring my sample back in. So this, we've knit this with this side facing and then we're gonna turn our ribbing inside out. So that way when it's attached to the hat and we flip it upward, we still see that nice ribbing on the outside. So let me just explain how we're gonna do that. Um And then after this, we will go back to Katrina for uh a little bit. All right. So in order to turn our ribbing around, let me just turn to the right page. So I can tell you where this is in your pattern. OK. So after we've worked through the ribbing, we're gonna, there's this turn right side out as follows because we are working, this is really gonna be the right side of the ribbing after it's folded if that makes sense. So what we wanna do is we wanna start working the slip stitch pattern with this side facing us. So So the slip stitch is gonna be the outside and this is gonna look like it's inside out. But when we fold the ribbing up, it'll be on the outside. I hope that makes sense. If, if it doesn't make sense, definitely pop some questions in there. It looks like we've got lots of hellos here too. Um, let me just, oh, yeah, we've got lots of hellos. Um, oh, da Dana is saying National Knit. A hat day is coming. So I'm super excited to try this. I'm at work so I can't work on it now, but I can watch. Awesome. And uh hello to Mary. Uh hello to Mary B hi and Jim is saying hi as well. Don is here. Good morning from the Republic of Washington. It's a lovely day to knit or crochet. True. Every day is right. And Betty says long tail cast on is the best cast on. Ok. Don't prefer the backwards loop cast on. Yeah, that's good for some things, but that's, it's not my favorite either. Vanessa says, show how we should add the row marker. OK. So you can add, you can add your, your stitch marker right at the beginning. So in between your stitches, whether you have a circular one or this one, it's just gonna be in between your needles and as you're working your way around, it'll just kind of sit there and you'll slip it every time you get to your, your real marker. Good question, Vanessa. And Jim is saying, will this video be available later? So I can watch? Yes, you can, you can watch it whenever you want later. And Bratt's mom says sorry to arrive late. Hi. Hi, Bratt's mom. Glad you're here again. All right. So we've gotten through, you know, you're gonna have a much longer ribbing section here and we're gonna start, uh, before we start the slip stitch pattern, we have to start, we have to flip our yarn in or flip our ribbing inside out. So the way that you do that is you're going to slip the next stitch pearl wise. So with your yarn in the back, so you're just gonna add you, you're just going to see here's my yarn in the back. I'm just slipping the stitch and then I'm gonna bring the yarn to the front between my needles. So there's the yarn in the front and then we're going to slip the stitch on the right hand needle. So that's here. We're gonna put it back on the left right there like that. OK. So that just kind of trapped our yarn behind that stitch is what we did. And then we can turn our work around this way and the yarn will be coming from the correct side and it'll feel just like normal. So that's just the little process so that you can turn your work and start working around the other way and some of you guys might be wondering, well, why didn't you just knit the ribbing the opposite way? And the reason I didn't do that is because I don't really like pearling through the back loop, which is what you'd have to do to have that twist in it. So, II, I just prefer to knit. Um, when I'm making this, um, half twisted rib, I just prefer to do it this way and then flip it, it might seem complicated. But once you flip it, you'll be like, oh, yeah, we're just turning it inside out. It's fine. Ok. So we're all set up to start our slip stitch pattern. But I'm gonna throw things back to Katrina for a little while. Um, and I would like to know Katrina. Um, first of all, I wanna ask you how, ok. Did, did you grow up on a farm or like, how did you kind of get into the sheep farming? I'm just curious about the, or your origin story with the sheep? Ok. Well, actually, um, well, I did actually grow up on a farm. Um, I'm from Eastern Washington State, which, you know, hello, my friend, I'm at Republic. Uh, so, um, I, when you grew up on a wee farm, there's, you basically have no, no neighbors at all for, um, many, many miles. Um, but, uh, we had livestock and actually strangely enough we didn't have sheep. I actually raised hogs growing up and showed, uh, showed them competitively in 4h and F fa my, my dad was into cattle. We had cattle so all these things. But, um, I grew up learning to do livestock evaluation, to do judging competitions and that sort of thing and I never thought I would do any of it as an adult. I mean, I went back east to school so I was like, I'm out of here, you know, done with. So, but I came back to Washington State and found myself actually um running a 4h program on the Olympic Peninsula um in a little town called Chimica. Some of you may, if you're a pacific Northwesterner, you may know where Chimica is otherwise, I'm sure you would not. But it's where um there was a famous book back in the day called the A and I, and um this was back in like, I think the sixties or seventies, I think it was in the sixties. Anyway, that's where it was based. So that gives you the house for Jefferson County I want was basically being hired to be the livestock judge. It sounds like we're having some trouble getting Katrina's audio. I don't know if you can hear me, Katrina, but I'm not able to hear you. So maybe I will jump back into this for a little bit and we can sort that out. Ok? I'm gonna jump back into talking about the next step on this hat which is working on the slip stitch pattern. So here in round one here we are in the slip stitch. Actually, we're gonna do, um, before we jump into the slip stitch section, there is one more little set up round here. And so I'm not actually gonna show this here, but, um, but you will, you can see that there's three different sections depending on the size that you're working on here. And what this is setting up is it, you are basically doing some increases. We're preparing this to um add some more stitches because the slip stitch section, even though we're going to switch to that larger needle at this point, um, or at the slip stitching section, when we switch to that larger needle right after we do this little line here, um, it still isn't quite large enough and the slip stitch section kind of sucks everything in a little bit more. So we're going to be adding some extra stitches throughout here to kind of maintain the circumference or make it just a little bit bigger than the ribbing so that it fits your head and it's kind of proportional to the ribbing size. So you'll see here, um, depending on the size that you're working on, let's just say I was working on the adult small, medium, large or small, medium size, you would knit five and then you'd knit into the front and the back of the stitch and you'd do that 20 times here. I'll just do that once just in case you guys are a little newer to knitting and you don't know how to, how to do the knit front back stitch. But so you would just here, I'm gonna place my marker here. Whoops. We'll place my marker in here and then we would knit five. So one, two, three, And then we're gonna knit into the front and the back of our stitch. So we're gonna knit in the front. So this is just like a regular knit stitch. And then before we pull that off, we're going to sneak our needle back in here and we're gonna knit the back of that stitch as well and then we'll pull it off our needle. So that just increased our stitch count by one right there. And so whatever is in those parentheses is what you're gonna be repeating all, you know, however many times. So you would be doing that 20 times around. So knit, five, knit front back and then you do that again, knit, five, knit front back, same thing for these other sizes. You may be repeating that more, fewer times. Um Just depending, but this is just a way to make sure that the stitch count's gonna align. Everything's gonna work out mathematically and it's gonna be the right size. So you're gonna go ahead and do that round the body of the beanie and then you're gonna change to your larger circular needle after that. And when you do that. Let's see, maybe I'll just un knit this one stitch and I'll move my, um, you won't be doing this on yours. This is just for the purposes of being able to demonstrate the next step here. Um So when we start on the slip stitch section, so just a little bit of overview about the slip stitch section. There's only four rounds here that you're gonna be repeating. So the first round you're gonna be doing slip stitches within that round and I'll show you what that means. The second round, you're knitting all the stitches in the same color. The, the third round, you're going to be doing some more slip stitches and then the fourth round you're knitting all those stitches. So really there's only two rounds where you really have to be paying attention about the slip stitching business. It's, and it's not very hard. That's what I love about this color work pattern because it looks tricky, but it's really not. And you're only working with one, you know, one strand of color at a time. Um And it just makes it really easy. You're not gonna tangle your yarns up. It's gonna be fun. OK. So, all right. And it looks like Katrina's audio is fixed. So I think we're gonna go back to Katrina at this point and then I'll get into the slip stitching pattern. Hi, Katrina. Sorry about that. No. Sorry about that. I, I think what happened is I have a mute button on my phone um, for switching cameras and things and I think I was touching my phone and I would turn it on. But anyhow, the long and short of it is actually, I, I really learned about raising sheep from my 4h kids, um, when I was running a 4h program and then my, my, um, so that was really a, a great education. And then my, my husband's niece, um, ended up getting her into 4h with, um, we started with a champion. You named Harriet. And if you go to spoiled sheep.com, you can actually meet the sheep and you can see all their pictures and you can read all their little biographies and so you can read all about Harriet. So Harriet is, was the matriarch of spoiled sheep. And she, um, she's the one that started it all. And so she, yep, that's Harriet with her daughter, Delilah, um, Harriet and Delilah. And, um, she was the sheep that taught us everything we need to know. Um, sheep can be very wise. And Harriet, um, had a very long and illustrious show career as a 48 sheep. And she loved to go to the fair and she would always stand right in the corner of the pen. This is not normal behavior for a sheep. Normally they just like, don't like strangers, but Harriet loved to go to the fair. So, so she started it all and then, um, just learned along with, um, you know, my four age kids and my hus my husband's niece, you know how to prepare and show champion fleeces and things. And then when we moved to the ranch here in Spokane, um, we brought her sheep with us because she was a basketball star and I didn't have a lot of time for her sheep at that time. So we brought her flock with us and then I added to it and, you know, the, the sheep have been coming and going. They, they live out their lives here so I get to see them start to finish. So, uh, yeah, there we are. That's our, our little Rose Butte ranch, you know, out here. And, um, so they, they have a very cush life the sheep. But that's, you know, I've always been involved with, or at least when I was growing up apart from the eight years I lived back east was in investment banking and things like that. Um, I pretty much have always, you know, really loved livestock and, and working with them and, and I think with sheep it's, there's something really special about the relationship with sheep. Yeah, we can tell. Look at that picture of you like Disney Princess picture. I love that photo. All right. I'm gonna show the next step on this and we're gonna kind of be going back and forth between my little tutorial and then Katrina talking about more about her adorable sheep. Ok. So here we are in the slip stitch section. We've already done our set up round, we talked a little bit about that, the slip stitch section. Um, we're gonna be working round one in the, the same color as we did the ribbing in. So we're not changing colors yet. So we're going to knit one, just a regular knit, not through the back loop like we have been. So there's our knit knit one. And then actually I'm, I don't, yeah, I'm gonna bring this in because I'm changing to a larger needle here. Don't forget to change to your larger needle at this point. OK. So we're knitting one just like regular and then we're gonna do a Hound's tooth combination, which means we slip the next stitch and we slip that pearl wise with the yarn and back. So let me move this so you can see my yarn a little better. So there's my yarn held to the back and I'm just going to go ahead and slip that stitch like that. Then we're going to make one left, which means we're gonna pick up the strand between our stitches and you want your left hand needle to go through from front to back underneath that strand. So you can pick it up with your right hand and place it on your needle or you can just pick it up with your um left hand needle like that. However you wanna do it and then we're going to knit through the back loop. So that's back here. There we go. So we're just knitting through that back loop and that's gonna twist the stitch, which is nice because then it doesn't leave a hole. And then the next, we're still working that Hounds Tooth combination. So we first we have a slip one pearl wise with yarn and back, then we have a make one left. Now we have another slip, one pearl wise with the yarn and back. So every time you're slipping your stitches, you're always gonna have the yarn in the back and you're always slipping them pearl wise in this pattern. OK? So we're gonna slip that one and then we're going to knit the next stitch, which is right here and then we're gonna go count back four stitches, And we're going to grab that stitch, the fourth stitch from the tip of your needle and you're gonna pull it over all of the other three stitches that are on your needle like that and drop it off. So you have that little horizontal bar going across and it sort of groups those three into, you know, a group of three. And then after that, you're going to repeat. So we're gonna do a knit stitch, just a regular knit and now we're gonna do our Hounds Tooth combination. So slip one pearl wise and then we'll make one left and slip one pearl wise with yarn and back knit one. And we're gonna count four stitches back and we're gonna raise that fourth stitch up and over the other three and off the needle just like that. So you may notice we're making one every time, but then we're decreasing because we're pulling a stitch off every time. So we're maintaining our stitch count. So you're just gonna do that all the way around that first round. So that's round number one of your slip stitch pattern. By the time we get back to, um, we're gonna do um, another round of this lighter color and then we're gonna switch to the darker color after that and then we're gonna go back and repeat. So by the time you do this round, number one, the next round, the next round, it's gonna look a little different because you're gonna be pulling up some strands of black because you've already worked black and we'll get to that in a little bit and I'll show you what that looks like, but it's not always gonna look exactly like this. The stitch shapes will be the same, the motions you're doing is exactly the same, but it's gonna look a little different because you're gonna be slipping stitches that are of a different color. So it's gonna change how this looks a little bit. All right, let's go back to Katrina a little bit. Hey, Katrina, do you want to talk to us a little bit about, um, like the, the general process of going from sheep into yarn. Sure. I would love to. That's always a lot of fun because a lot of people have never seen, for example, actually see a sheep be sheared. Now, I know that they, in the studio they have um, a video of our sheep, Little Joe, uh being sheared. So they're getting that together. Um, I, I'm just gonna tell you a little quick thing about Little Joe. Yep. There he is and little Joe. I always volunteers to be first. So when little Joe was um, very young, he, he's a very wooly sheep. He's a, a Romney Rambo, a cross and little Joe's face is very fuzzy. So he gets wool blind. We have to trim his face every so often. And there, in fact, there's uh Martin Dibble who's cheering his face, which always gives me much fear and trepidation, but it doesn't seem to bother the sheep. But anyway, little Joe one day we went out and here was little Joe just laying there despondent. And I'm like little Joe, what's, what's wrong? And he, his wool had grown up enough to where he felt like he couldn't see very well. And so he decided, I think that he was doomed. So he ran and got the, the little shears and trimmed up his face and then he jumped up and ran to the feeder and was was all happy again. But little Joe always volunteers to be the first sheep to be sheared. And so he's always waiting at the gate to be number one. So I always get asked a lot, you know, um, you know, we, we are rightfully very concerned about, you know, caring for animals properly. Um, these days, which is all, you know, for the most part, it's very much a good thing. And so I get a lot of questions about, you know, is shearing cruel and all these things. But I always tell you shearing is like Christmas that the sheep are so happy once they get that fleece off. I mean, in terms of enjoying the process, they probably enjoy it as much as the average three year old does. But, you know, for the most part, our shears are very gentle and, you know, they do care about the animal's welfare and they, they, um, they come off, you know, they're very, they handle them very carefully because I mean, I don't want my sheep injured, I don't want my fleece damaged. You know, this is my crop basically. And so it's very much, um, the sheep as soon as they get that fleece off, they run over to the fence and they're scratching themselves because remember that their skin has not come anywhere near anything that they could truly scratch on for months. So they're pretty tickled when in fact, one sheep Lilac who she's actually been knitting with Lilac is the biggest because as soon as she gets sheared, she's standing over our shoulder the whole time watching the sheer, we have to keep pushing her away because she wants to be involved and, and she wants to get scratched. So Lilac is a big fan of, of being scratched. So, um, she's kind of like a dog. So once, once she gets sheared, she's pretty much in our way the whole time. But, but that's ok. We love lilac. But anyway, they have a lot of personality. So first the sheep gets sheared obviously. And then, um, then I have to do something called skirting. And so when the fleece as you saw in the pictures, you might have kind of got the idea. So the, the she kind of starts at the sheep's armpits basically and works out. So it all comes off in a big blanket. And if you can kind of picture, you know, here's the head, here's, you know, legs, you know, poopy bits, you know, that kind of thing around the edges. So if you think of it like skirting the edges, that's where the undesirable wool is located, is the head wool, the leg wool, the poopy bits. So you take all that off and um, what's left is more like the usable yarn. Now, when I say usable, there's something really exciting that's happening in the world of wool right now. We actually have a processor um, with a pellet mill up in deer park just north of us. So now all my waist tool, anything that doesn't actually go into the yarn now gets made into wool pellets that are used for a mulch for, um, soil amendment. It's just amazing for the soil. So start looking for those of you who like to garden, start looking for wool pellets. So that's super exciting. I basically have zero waste wool now and actually the poopy bits are, are great for the pellets. So it's, it's a great full circle kind of thing. But anyway, so I have to take all that wool and in fact, rather than talk about it, why I show you some of this. So sheep are very dirty. Ok. So here it is, here is some, some wool and actually I'm gonna put on my other overhead here. So just to give you an idea. So when the places come off the ship, um this is a, a Wednesday Dale fleece. This is um some rani it's, it's very dirty. So sheep have kind of a, a sweat. It's not precise. Well, it basically a sweat and we call it so and you can see how it looks kind of yellowish. Um That's from the landline also. So it's very greasy, it's very dirty, you know, it's usually full of weeds. So I have to pick all that stuff out. It doesn't just magically come out what happens in one of the big differences between say the wool I produce. So the yarn I produce and commercial wool yarn. Um, where it's done in big batches is that they don't have to do like the initial skirting that I do as the sheep is being sheared just pulling off the, what's obviously not going to be used? That's pretty much all the skirting that they do because um commercial wool actually goes through a process called carbonation. And what that is is uh, wool has a very high resistance to acidic things. So they actually, um, will dip it in a solution of hydrochloric acid and then they heat up the wool and that literally burns out all the vegetative matter. We call it vegetable matter. VM is what we call fleece contamination. And so that process of dipping in an acid and heating it up, carbonizes out any little bits of weeds and hay and all that stuff that fleeces are full of. So, um, that's how they do it in the commercial world. But yours truly gets to hand, pick all of that out of my fleece. So it can take, it can take sometimes a few hours at least for me to go through a fleece and get it ready to be made into yarn. So once I've got that fleece as clean as I can get it. So if you have spoiled cheap yarn and occasionally find a little fleck of hay, well, just please, you know, forgive me because believe me, I have touched every inch of that yarns fiber. Um But anyhow, so then it goes to the processor where it goes through a process of first washing and they'll wash out the majority of the landlines. So like, for example, so again, I'm just gonna use my, since I have my, my Wensleydale fleece here or my Wensleydale Cross actually. So like here's the difference between the raw fleece and just, you know, I didn't soak this was only 11 wash bath. So my processor will usually do a couple of wash baths. And um so I'm not sure why my focus isn't a little clearer here, but um get the idea, I think, but any rate. So this is very, very much whiter once the landline is washed out, this is from the same shearing. Um But again, the, the the actual processor will usually do a couple different dye baths to see if my other camera looks sharper here. Um No, that's a little too close. Anyhow. I think you get the idea. Yeah, we can see there's a really big difference between those two Katrina. There's a huge difference. It's significant. So, you know, it's like when people buy raw fleece, it's, it's like, don't judge it until it's been washed. But anyhow. So, yeah, it's um but then it goes through a process of um it then goes to um what's called a picker. So that literally picks apart to see how this kind of wants to, you know, it clumps together, it comes off the shape like a blanket, it sticks together. And then so it goes through a picker after it's washed and that separates out the fibers makes it in this big fluffy cloud of fiber. And from there it goes into the carding machine and then if it's going to make, that would make bats or roving and then if it's going to be spun a lot of times it'll go through a pin drafter and that could make, um, that's called, called more of a top. And then of course, it's spun and stained and all that kind of stuff. But, but that's the basic process. Wow, thank you for that. That's a lot of information. So need to see the uh the, the differences between the wall that you showed us that, I mean, that was just like night and day there. So can you, I'm curious about the carbonation process. Does that putting it in the hydrochloric acid? I know you said it ha wool has a resistance to that, but like does that change other properties of the wool? Like, does that make a difference for those commercial yarns where they're just inherently different once they go through that process compared to your yarn? Because it doesn't go through that process. Well, the wool fiber itself is, is really strong and it, like I said, it has a high affinity for acidity. This is why we use acid based dyes to um to dye wool because wool has an affinity for acid. So its chemical linkages um are are very strong um and they're not really affected now, alkalinity. So like bleach, for example, bleach is a a strong alkaline and wool literally dissolves in bleach. So um one of the ways we test for wool in like the make it with wool competition, one of the ways we test for wool is actually you can take a scrap of your wool fabric, put it in a cup of, of undiluted bleach. And um if it all dissolves, it's probably 100% wool. Um So some of it, you may be left with a few things in it that um those are, um there might be, you know, some polyester fibers and there are some spandex fibers, whatever, but we test for that. You a really rudimentary test is to put it in bleach. But anyhow, so go back to the carbon carbonation. I don't think it actually damages the wheel wool, but in my opinion, my opinion, my yarn because or any, any kind of yarn that you've bought from a pro processor that's been hand processed fleece by fleece. Um It's gonna feel different because like my wool still has a little bit of the natural landline in it. It still has that it's still kind of sheepy, you know, I mean, I can feel that and I, I noticed that when I'm working with your yarn. I'm, I'm very much used to working with commercial yarns and this just feels different. Like it feels like it. I would, you know, I could tell that there's something different going. Like, it's almost like it has lotion but it's not lot, it's not sticky or anything like that, but it feels conditioned in some way where it doesn't stick to you. I have really dry hands and I normally, like, get a little cringy when I'm working in the winter with wool and it kind of like sticks to my fingers, you know, but it feels, this feels so different to me. So that's, yeah, that's what I, in my opinion, that's the biggest difference is that with my wool. It, um, because it's because it's, it's not carbonized, you know, the Lalin, I mean, Lalin is a commercial product also. So, you know, it behooves, you know, the producers to, to, to remove the Lanolin from the fleece because obviously then it can be used in cosmetics and things. Lanolin is the closest to human skin oil, um, of all, you know, nonhuman oils. So it's very, very good for your, for your skin. But, um, but anyhow, it, uh, that's, I think the biggest that and, you know, Brenda has noticed it too is just, you know, you can, it's a difference. I mean, it sounds like a cliche or a marketing slogan, but it's a difference you can feel. Yeah. Um, that's I mean, it feels different. II, I don't think it feels, I think it feels less harsh. Um, there's this, there's, this, um, wool is actually, it's sorted by different categories of the diameter of the yarn. So you have fine, like your merinos and your Rambos, you have your mediums, um, which would be, you know, like your Kraal and, um, even like some of the, the, um, breeds like Dorset and poly pays and things would be more kind of a medium and you have what we call coarse breeds, which would be our Romneys and a lot of, most of our long wolves, my Wesley Dales, that sort of thing. But there's this kind of a misnomer that coarse means rough and harsh and it's not true at all. I mean, I, I tell you that any of my Romney yarns can go right against your skin unless you're extremely sensitive. Um, but I think part of it, in my opinion, part of it is because it's, it's not completely stripped out. And, I mean, with commercial yarns, they have to add back in oils in the spinning process, um, to make up for the fact that the landline's been removed, but they don't have to do that with my yarn. So, um, yeah, it's, it's, it's just different and, uh, you know, the only thing it's been exposed to is, is soap and water. So, I just think that's better for everybody. Uh huh. And like, what you were saying about it, feeling something being coarse but it's not, it's not itchy, like I can feel it has more texture to it, but it's not itchy at all. Like it's not one thing that I do sometimes when I'm like, trying to decide, you know what I want, if I wanna make a cow or a sweater or something that's gonna go next to my neck, which is the place that I'm the most sensitive is I'll like, put a little bit of yarn and wear it like a necklace for a while and just see if it's annoying or not. And it's, I, I was like, this, feel like I can feel the texture in this. I wonder what this would feel like as a sweater. So I tried that out and not, not itchy at all. Like, but yeah, I know, I, I understand what you're saying. It does have a, that a coarser feel but it's not, yeah, it's not itchy. It's, it's really not, not, it doesn't mean that it's rough. It's, it's just, um, it's just the diameter of the yarn is very different. Do you want me to talk a little bit about, about yarn fibers and some of the differences? Sure. I just wanna pop in here real quick just to show you guys. So I worked all the way around on that round one of the slip stitch pattern and I've started working on round two because all it is, is knitting every stitch as it comes up. Here's the end of my round. I've just started knitting my stitches and then after this, um, uh, you know, I'll pop back in and show you the next step. But, yeah, take it away. Katrina. Oh, no problem. Just, I can talk about sheep all day. So, just me whenever you need to. But, um, I'm just going to show some samples and I may need to refocus a camera here real quick. But um and maybe adjust the exposure. But one thing that really affects the quality of yarn is uh something we call crimp. And we're talking about these various kinds of yarn and you know, the yarn diameter is one thing but, and excuse my, this is what, you know, livestock people's hands look like. So please excuse I have to put on fake nails when I need to look good on camera. But um but anyhow, so this is um some Romney fleece, let me grab just a couple of different samples here. Some different fleeces. You can see the differences. So this is a Romney fleece. Now, Romney actually, it might be a Romney Rambo cross. And so a Rambo is a, is a fine, fine wool and a um Romney is course will. So when you breed the two together, you get some really nice results. So I really like my Romney Rambo crosses but you see how it looks, there's like little zigzags just hold still so my camera can focus a little better. That looks better. Ok. So you can see like those little zigzags. That's what we call crimp. So crimp varies a lot from breed to breed and it can be whether it's fine or coarse or, or anything in between. And we also have things to consider like what we call staple link. So in this case, the top one is a Romney that's a long wall. Um The one below it, this is actually Natalie. This is actually um one of the fleeces that Brenda's knitting with is Natalie and this is some of her raw fleece from her shearing in And you can see that it's not as long as the Romney. Now, let's compare that to the, the shearing from the same exact year. Go back over to my beautiful Wensleydale samples. So look at the difference here in length. Let's actually maybe it's better this way. Ok. So I'll just line up the roots here, actually goes that way. Yeah. And so can I even get the, the Wensley Dale on camera here? So one of the things I that's kind of crazy about when you're breeding and you're processing this into wool is that this Wensleydale fleece and see how big the crimp is in it. It's super big compared to down here with Natalie with a little bit finer. And this is nothing compared to um, a marina would have an even finer crimp than that. But anyhow, um, this, it's too long for me to get commercially processed. So I can only sell my Wensleydale fleece. Um, I sell it actually as raw wool and it gets made into, um, doll hair usually and Santa beards and things. And you saw how, how brilliantly white it is when it's washed, you know, all that, I icky stuff comes out. So this is very popular, um, for Santa beards and doll hair and things, but I cannot have this made into yarn, uh because it's too long. So there's actually limits to how long a fiber, your spinner, your commercial spinner can card and spin. So I could process this for myself to spin by hand, um using hand cards. But you can't even my drum carter isn't, isn't, isn't a big enough cylinder to process this with my drum carter. So this is all the same exact year's growth. So these sheep were all shed on the same day. Um, and they've been cheered on the same day the year before. So this is, there's a huge difference, not only in the kind of wool they produce, but even in the length, there's just a huge difference. So, um, it's really raising sheep is really interesting because you're always trying to figure out, you know, what you want to work with. But also, you know, there's so many different characteristics and then when it's made into roving, actually maybe I'll try this one again. So when it's made into roving, like this is just lower, the, this is a roving old still here. Um, of a corrida Rambo, a cross. And do you see those? I think if I hold still, there we go. There's little slubs in it. These are called naps. And for some reason, with some corals, they're very prone to producing NPS, these little balls of fiber and it's just this particular sheep. It's just part of his character. Um, you know, I've, I've researched it, you know, what can I do about it? Basically, I just have to accept that. So his yarn when it's spun, it just, it's going to be irregular, just very slightly irregular, which can sometimes drive the spinner. I've had some commercial spinners where if the yarn wasn't absolutely perfectly smooth, they, they get kind of irritated about it. But, you know, knitters don't seem to mind it. I don't mind it. I think it's beautiful, but, um, there's different characters to it and these nips don't really show up until it gets processed. But um, anyhow, and you know, it all knits up differently. The, the amount of crimp in it really affects the, the way that it knits up. So like here's a swatch from Nicole and then compare that to say this is a Wensley deal. So I showed you that really long lock. This is, this is May, this is not the same Wensleydale sheep. But, um, the fuzzier yarn, so the fuzzier yarn, see how it fills in the gaps better. Um, let's see what size needle. This was a size nine needle. I'm not sure why she knitted these on. So, such a large needle. Ok. So Nels was actually knitted on size three needles and this was not knitted on size nine needles. But even though this was knitted on a considerably smaller needle because of that big cramp. So here's nell was pretty much a purebred Wensleydale. Here's another more highly uh or more purebred Wednesay Dale than the one I showed you for, for a little Laney or no. That was, that was lottie. Anyway, really big crimp. So you're not gonna get that fuzz with the big cramp. So the coarser wool long wool breeds, this is what is nice to spin if you want to do super, super fine knitting, like what they call the um what they call a uh wedding ring shawl. For example, if you have these really long um fine fibers, I mean, this is technically a coarse wool. It's, the fiber itself is not, is not um small, but it's so long that you can spin it practically like just a very, very fine thread. And that's what is ideal for hand spinning into those, those very, very fine shells. But so that crimp, it makes a big difference in terms of whether you get a fuzzy yarn or more of a smooth yarn, even though these were both commercially spun, um, by the same processor. So it's not like one was done woolen in the woolen manner and one was done in the worsted manner. You know, they, they're all basically, uh, more of a worsted type spinning. So, so the, the character of the wool makes a big difference. So, yeah, that's interesting. It's so, you know, the more that I knit and crochet, the more I'm of course, learning about yarn, I'm kind of learning about it backwards. Like when things don't work, then I'm like, oh, wow. I guess I should have picked a different yarn for that, but it's interesting to know, you know, from the beginning the way I should be learning, like to understand like what type of wool turns into what type of yarn or what would be good for what kinds of projects or the diff, you know, different looks of the yarn or that type of thing. So there's a sheep for every purpose. So, I mean, in, in all stairs. So like sheep evolved with us. I mean, this is, I think this is, this is my hypothesis of why people love sheep because we are so, you know, our paths as a civilization have been so intermeshed with sheep and you know, sheep or what Joe, I mean, Great Britain and Spain would not have had the amazing, the big empires that they did back in the day if it wasn't for the world trade because the world trade is what financed it all. So, you know, Australia, if Australia, someone haven't accidentally sent a batch of merinos and somebody hadn't realized what they were and didn't eat them. Um, to Australia, you know, world history would have been changed. So there's literally, I mean, there's certain sheeps for carpets, certain sheep for socks, certain sheep for because the, again, that character of their wool is so different, but, you know, some are more soft and fuzzy, but they're not as strong because the fiber length like Merino, Merino's my, um, my ramble a crosses don't grow that much. I mean, that's, that's definitely a once a year shearing. Whereas my long wheels, I could share twice a year if I wanted to. So it's, it, there's just a lot of differences, but I think that's why people love sheep. Lots of variety, variety and color and variety. And I mean, and our survival, you know, as, and our ability to thrive as, as human beings. All right, I'm gonna, I'm ready to show you the next step on the slip stitch section. So we have completed round two, which was just knitting in that same main color. And now we're gonna bring in our second color here. I've got lilac here ready to go. So I'm gonna slip my marker and then I am going to just start knitting with the, the black yarn here. And these are just regular knit stitches. I'm gonna make three knits. So one, 23 and then I'm gonna do that Hounds Tooth combination. So this slip stitch round is exactly the same as round. Number one. I'm working on round number three now, but it's exactly the same as round number one, except I'm using the black yarn and I'm staggering where I'm doing my stitches where I'm doing my slip stitches. So instead of knitting one and doing my Hounds Tooth, I'm knitting three and then I'm gonna do my Hounds tooth stitch or stitch combination here. So to do that again, I'm gonna be slipping the first stitch pearl wise with yarn and back then I'm going to make one left. So I grab that strand between stitches and I'm gonna knit through the back of that loop. And then I'm going to slip the following stitch again with the yarn and back. I'm slipping it pearl eye. Then I'm gonna knit the next stitch right there. And now I'm going to pick up the fourth stitch from the tip of the needle. So that is once you switch into working the second color, which is the black from this point on, whenever you are doing the slip stitch pattern, you're always gonna be pulling up a stitch from the, from the previous color. So I'm working with black now and I'm gonna be pulling up uh a white stitch if that just kind of helps you make sure you're on track with things. And then when you pull that stitch over, you're kind of corralling those three little stitches together. It's always going to be the color you're working with. And then in the center is going to be the color from, you know, the opposite color and then the color that you're working with. So it's gonna be, you know, the opposite color is gonna be sandwiched between the two of them and you don't need to know that, but it's just a way to keep track of where you're at, making sure you're pulling the correct stitch over and all that. So then we're gonna repeat, we're gonna do knit one here and you might be wondering why one and three here. And the reason is because we have to stagger. Where are we putting these little um slipped sections? And when we get around to the end and I'll show you this after Katrina talks a little bit. But when we get all the way around to the end, we're going to use some of these stitches again to make that slip stitch, that Hound tooth combination right here. OK. So we knit one and then we're gonna slip one Pearl wise with yarn in back, then we're going to make one left right there and we're gonna slip one with Pearl Wise with the yarn and back then we're going to knit one. Now we're going to pull the fourth stitch up and over the last three we made like that. OK. And then we'll repeat that. So, knit slip, then we make one left. There we go and slip one pearl wise. It's yarn and back knit one. After you do that knit one, you're gonna pull up the fourth stitch from the left and pull it over. So you might notice as I'm doing this slip stitch pattern, um, I, at the very end after I knit one, I don't pull it off my needle. You can certainly do that if you want. So, here's that last knit one that I'm talking about, you can pull this off the needle. I just leave it in there because it seems to make my knitting a little faster just to leave it in there until after I pull it over and then I pull my needle out of both stitches. So it's, it's up to you, but you don't have to leave it in there. I just didn't want to confuse anybody. So I'm gonna continue working the slip stitch pattern all the way around. And just before I get to the end, we'll check in again. Um, and I'll show you kinda how to complete this round. So, uh let's welcome Katrina back. She can te tell us some more about sheep. I was just looking to see if there's any questions yet just in case there was, um, I don't see any, but if you don't have anything in mind to talk about I was thinking maybe you could talk, well, first, maybe talk about your color names and maybe you can talk about how your yarns have changed over time and the colors of your yarns. Because I found that interesting. It's something I've never thought about before. I talked to you. Yeah. Well, as Brenda mentioned, uh, my flock is mostly, well, they're all natural colored but some of them are, are cream color, you know, white basically. Um But yeah, so, so I grow a flock of natural colored sheep and they, they, well, there's my goats up front and center, of course. But um but yes, so they come in a whole variety of different shades and actually that's lilac up um on the right there in front. Um Lilac and her twin sister Laney. Um So, so sheep. Um I can tell that basically the yarn I sent Brenda is probably Lilac's first shearing and I could tell that because it's very black, black is a really difficult color to, to get from the sheep because like us, they turn gray as they get older. So, so every year my sheep's place is different. So on the cards or on their, their labels, the labels for the yarn on the back of the label, I can show you one here. It's like on the back of this, this sample here. I have. Um It's going to tell you it won't say what size needles because this was obviously for a swatch. So that was just a note for myself. But it's going to tell you that, you know the name of the sheep, it's going to tell you, um, what year that she, the year the shearing and I like to put the wraps per inch because to say just the decay or it's worsted or it's fingering weight to me is not accurate enough. So I do my best to take a couple different counts and put the wraps per inch. So that hopefully it makes it a little bit easier to make sure that if you're combining colors that you can get um similar performance from the different yarns. But bia so every year the sheep is different and this is even like with Nel, this is the difference between 2013 and Now, granted, it's not a huge difference because this is a white sheep, but there's still, she was still a little bit finer in her. Her w was a little bit finer in 2013 than it was in 2014. Now, actually, she, it tends to get finer as they get older. But in 2013, she had lambs and so she was pregnant when she was sheared for this one. And of course, when you're pregnant, you're producing more energy into, to growing lambs and she was already an older sheep by then. So she was taking a lot of energy and putting into those lambs. So her wool is different in 2013. Um, partly because of, you know, the, when it, when it was sheared and what was going on with her body. Um, another reason they, they will change is because of just the weather changes. So, so every year, of course, you might have a late cool spring, you might have a long hot summer. That's pretty much almost always in Spokane. But, um, point is is that you'll have different weeds. Um, sheep will eat weeds before they eat grass. They, they really love weeds. And, um, so our, our pasture always looks really pretty, but they, they do eat grass too, but they, they're pretty good browsers. So, um, depending on the cycle of different plants, their particular seed cycle because, you know, some plants are annuals, some are biennials, et cetera. So, depending on the plants in the cycle, um, what they're eating varies from year to year. And so the climate varies from year to year. And so as a result, their sh their fleeces are often, they're slightly different colors. So when I brought, um, my husband's nieces sheep to from western Washington to eastern Washington, their fleeces were totally different the next year. I mean, yes, they were still, you know, ash brown or gray or what have you. But it was a slightly different color. You could really see the difference and it was just because of a different change in diet and climate. So, um, they really, they respond a lot. And so that's why with my yarn. Now, what happens in the commercial wool industry is that, um, if you ever tour the, the Pendleton woolen mills, uh, here in the northwest, I, I recommend it's very interesting, but they'll, they'll reserve, even though all they work with is white wool, they'll reserve bags of fleece from each year, going back several years so that they mix in uh multiple years at a time, every time they process. And that helps to ensure that there's a consistency to the spin because if they were to only use one particular year at a time, the yarn would vary too much. So like their blankets wouldn't be as consistent. So even in the commercial world, they're mixing, um, again, batches from different years, um, shearing from different years in order to maintain a consistent clip. Uh So there's just, there's an awful lot to, to wool and, you know, just as I said, there's, there's about 1000 breeds of sheep worldwide. And so it's, it, um, again, a sheep for every purpose. Yeah. So much variety. It's just mind boggling. Ok. So I have almost reached the end of my round three here and my slip stitch pattern. So I wanna show you how I complete round three because it's just a little bit different. Um And the reason it's a little different is because we've shifted over where we're doing those little slip stitch combinations and we need to make a slip stitch combination, right, that straddles right on top of where our stitch marker is. So I've worked all the way around until there's just one stitch left to work. And then I'm going to do that, that Houn tooth combination. But it, this is called the in the pattern. I abbreviate it as the lht meaning the last pounce tooth. And so this stitch pattern, this exact thing I'm going to do here is only happens on the contrasting color rounds of the slip stitch pattern and you'll see why in a minute. So we only have one stitch left, but we have to make one more little slip stitch combination here. So we're gonna slip that stitch pearl wise with our yarn held in the back. And then we are going to make, we're going to um make one left. And so we'll just pick up this. Actually, we're gonna remove our stitch marker. So it's out of the way, we're gonna make one left with that little strand right there on top. So that means we just pull it up on our needle and we knit through the back of it. There's our knit and then now this is where our stitch marker was, but we're gonna be using these next two stitches in this combination. So the next stitch just like before we're gonna slip it with the yarn in the back and don't mind that it's a black stitch that's ok. And then the next stitch is going to be knit. Ok. So, keep in mind those two stitches are the first two stitches of the next round. So we've got those four stitches done. And we're going to lift the fourth stitch from the tip of the needle up and over the last three that we made. Oh, and this, this stitch right here is, you know, because we switched to another color. You, you don't wanna stretch it out too much. So you just wanna grab that stitch, pull it over these three and you can tighten it a little bit here um in the back and we're gonna be continuing that next round in the same color that we just worked. So it's in that contrasting color of the black. So, um but before we do that, we don't wanna lose track of where the beginning of our round is. So, remember those last two stitches we did that. We worked as part of that last Hound's tooth combination. Those last two stitches are actually the first two stitches of our round. So we're putting our stitch marker back in place there and then we're going to slip those back. So now we've got our stitch marker in the correct place and we're just going to continue working our way around on the next round. We're just knitting every stitch all the way around. So we're just gonna knit every stitch as they come up just like this and then I will show you what it looks like um at the end of this round when we switch back to the next repeat of round one. So I think um if Katrina has more to talk about, we'll go back to Katrina. Um Let's see. I have some great questions here. So, yeah. Yay, love questions. So I'll, I'll just go in, in order here. So the first question from Marie and she's asking if I offer tours or workshops at the ranch for knitters who wanna learn more about the entire fleece to yarn process. So, actually, on the 21st of this month, um I'm actually having hosting a fleece and Fiber Day here at Rose Beet Ranch um on in the afternoon. So obviously, if you're in Spokane, Washington, then I had that weekend. Uh come on over and it's, it's free and I'm having, I'm, I'm going to have three classes um that talk about, you know, how to process it, talk about fleece. And, and anyway, all of that good stuff and I'll be selling fleece um at that have raw fleece available for purchase at that event. Um My yarn is all sold through my friends at Kimono Momo. Um They're going to be rebranding as probably as boujee knits, but right now it's all in their Kimono Momo Etsy shop. So, but again, if you go to spoiled sheep.com and you can click on shop, spoiled sheep. And um it, there will always be a link there to whomever is carrying my yarn as you can imagine. So, Spokane Washington is very dry so we can only, we can only graze so many sheep. So I'll never have a big brand. This is a labor of love. I would starve if I was, you know, dependent on the income from my sheep. But um I love sharing them with the world. It makes me excited. There's people walking around with hats and sweaters and things from my sheep. So, um it's a labor of love. But so to go back to answer your question, Marie. So if, if for some reason, you're going to be in Spokane, just send me an email, you can email me um, Katrina at spoiled sheep.com um or through the website or even through my regular website, Katrina walker.com. And um just ask because honestly, um in exchange for some labor and helping me skirt fleeces, I'm usually more than happy to teach you all about it. So, um right now it's mostly on an informal basis. So, um if, if you're willing to put in some works helping me skirt some fleeces, I'm more than happy to teach you. So, um Natalie was asked the questions and she says, I love the names of your sheep, especially Natalie. Of course, I said she's curious how we, we um choose the names for them. Well, Natalie, it's a funny thing. So, so Natalie happens to be the daughter of Nell. So a lot sometimes it has to do with, we kind of keep the, the initials, um initials consistent with um the name of the mother. Uh So like for instance, so Natalie is, was the the second born, her older sister Nicole older by, you know, a few minutes. Um I actually did help those sheep into the world. I I literally physically helped remove them from their mother. So I was there and um so baby, baby Natalie Nicole, so my husband's a Nicole Fit Kidman fan. And so, um and they're both very beautiful sheep. So one was Nicole and one was Natalie. Uh because there's a lot of beautiful, you know, actresses named Natalie too. So, so that's why it was Nicole and Natalie. Um sometimes they come to me with names, um like Nell and Ariana um already had names when I bought them. So, and they were registered sheep. So they were their registered names. Um So they came with, with names. Um my Gotland Cross Sheep, all of course had, you know, very Swedish kind of names. So there was Thor and Magnus and Ava and um Freya where my Gotland. So I'm really hoping to get more Gotland sheep. So um they will probably also have very Scandinavian names. Um So that, that's kind of the, the sheep naming basis. Um Lilac and Laney were actually named by some of our our young farm workers. Um, so they each got to name a sheep and they named them Laney and Lilac. Um, so it's, it, it all just depends. Um, let's see. So, Carol was asking approximately how many yards can you get from one sheared sheep? Well, I'm glad you asked. And this is why I actually have my Fa Qs. They're on the website too. I keep stats on all this stuff because I'm curious too. So, um, and I have more. So. Ok. Well, let's start. So how much we'll start with how much of fleece ways. So I'll do a few answers I think. Are you still, are you still knitting? Brenda? I'm ready. I'm ready to jump in. But why don't you jump in and I'll answer Carol's after that? Ok. All right. That sounds good. Ok. So here I have just completed working round four. Round four was just knitting in each stitch as it came up in that darker color. Um, and so when I'm gonna switch back to the new color or to the, to the white color, um, that would be a for a repeat of round one here. Let me pull this pattern in here. So we're like I said before, we're only repeating rounds one through four over and over for most of the hat. So we're gonna be going back to make a repeat of round one. So we're switching back to the main color and when we do that I just want to point out it makes things a little easier. A little smoother if you can lay your old color along the backside of your left hand needle like that and then bring the color you're switching to up from the bottom here. OK. So, so what that's doing is it's crossing over the color that we're letting go. So this is the one we're gonna let go of. This is the new one we're bringing it up. So it's gonna cross over that old color and then we can go ahead and do a repeat of round one, which would begin with that, the knit stitch first. So here we are. Let's see. OK. So we're gonna do a knit here and then we're gonna do that Houndstooth combination. So we slip our next strand of yarn pearl wise. Then we're going to make one slip the next one pearl wise with the arm and back again. And then we're gonna knit one but, and then we're going to count back four and pull that over the last three stitches that we made and let that off the needle there. And then after we do that Hounds Tooth combination, we're gonna go back to knitting just one here. Then we're gonna do the Hounds Tooth combination again. So basically we're doing Hound Tooth combination, knit one Houndstooth combination for the whole rest of the round. Oh, I forgot to put my stitch marker back in. That's another reason that I like using these split. Um, the removable stitch markers is because sometimes, uh you know, if I take it off for a minute, I will forget and then I'll have to put it back on. So after we've done that knit stitch, we're going to do the Hound's Tooth combination where we slip the next stitch, make one left, slip the next stitch and that one, then we pull the fourth stitch over the last three we made kind of corrals those three together. And like I said before, when I was working with the black, it was, you know, it was the opposite of this, but we've got the color that we're working with should be on either side of the center color, which is the one from the previous section of color that didn't make much sense. Let me try that again. So the color that we're working with after we've done that Hounds Tooth combination, you should only have one strand of the opposite color right in the middle of those corralled three stitches right there. So then I'm gonna knit one here slip, make one left slip, knit, grab the fourth stitch and pull it over the last three, drop them off your needle just like that and we just keep working that all the way around. And you can see when I pull down on this a little bit, it's starting to make those little kind of box shapes. So there's the white that kind of extends up and you can see that little patch of black there and you can kind of start to see that Houndstooth pattern emerging at this point. Katrina, were you ready to talk a little bit more about your sheep? Oh, you know, I'm always ready to talk about my sheep, but I hope everyone is enjoying this, this, this project as much as I am. I was so excited that someone was gonna do color work with my natural colored sheep. And it's just, I was really bummed because I didn't get one cast on myself before, before the this event. But now I'm really glad because watching Brenda is just such a treat and all the things that I probably would have got wrong. Now, now I think I can do that correctly. So, so we're learning so much from each other today. That's why I love these events. Oh, it's so fantastic. I love it. But, um, I so glad Carol asked that question. So Carol asked approximately how many yards of yarn can you get from one sheared sheep? So I'm gonna back up just a little bit. And so, um, just because you might be curious, kind of how it all ends up. So we'll start with how much does a fleece actually weigh? So I talked about the skirting process a little bit. So after skirting a fleece, depending on the size of the sheep. Now, my little Gotland sheep are as you might guess, glands. Uh, the sh, the Shetland sheep, the, um, um, ice lion ds and things. Those are kind of what we call our primitive breeds and they're really small. They're, they're pretty small. Um, cheviots are small. There's certain breeds that are very small. Whereas like my Wensley Dales, the ones that grow the really long wool, they're like the size of a Shetland pony or better. They're, and then, um, you can get into the Columbia sheep, which most of those Pendleton blankets I mentioned, um, a lot of the, the wool for them comes from our local Columbia and uh, cordial flocks here in the, in the Pacific Northwest. But I think the Columbia were basically bred, um, partly for that blanket production, but they're a, a native, I guess you could say they're the northwest, but they're absolutely huge. Like I said, they're about the size of a pony. So some of my shear, um, Martin Dibble who saw shearing little Joe, um, can't shear for me anymore because they're just not up to handling my big sheep. You know, they, they can do um, operations that are, are selling lambs. So they're just mostly sharing lambs that are much smaller. Um They're only like then they're only sharing like 100 100 and 20 pound sheep as opposed to my big old girls. But anyhow, um, so fleece after skirting weighs 3 to 13.5 pounds. So that's why I explained about the size of the sheep because obviously the bigger the sheep, the bigger the fleece. But usually in that 6 to 11 pound range, depending on the size. So that's how much it weighs after I picked all the garbage out and taken out any wool that isn't uniform. So then, um, from that you get about 1.5 to 8 pounds of yarn. So, because there's about depending on the amount of Lanolin sheep sweat, all that stuff in the fleece. Plus every step of the way, whether it's the washing, the, picking, the carting pin drafting, spinning, you lose fiber along the way. So, about 44 to 70% is my, um, my yield, um, in terms of yarn weight versus fleece weight, so 44 to 70%. Um, so what that results in now most of my yarn is, um, it's worsted weight. It's kind of decay worsted weight. Uh, most of my yarn, sometimes I usually have the spinner, the commercial spinner choose, um, what, how to spin it. Um, they're the experts on their machinery. I don't tell them how to spin my yarn. Um, so I asked them just to do whatever's best for that fleece, but usually it's decay worsted weight. Um, predominantly. So I usually get between 2900 to 9. My biggest, my biggest yield so far was Tara. She's a cord lu she's huge. So 9600 yards of yarn. Oh, my. Half of one sharing of Tara 5 to 6000 is pretty typical. So, um, an adult sweater obviously depends on the person, yada yada. But, you know, let's figure, you know, 2000 yards is a pretty good, it's a nice number to use for an adult sweater. So, 2000 yards. So, you know, if you've got 6000 yards of sheep, that's three sweaters. So, um, again, it varies a lot depending on the project and all that stuff. But, um, but hopefully that gives you an idea. So every sheep can produce somewhere between, you know, 1.5 to, in Tara's case, you know, darn air five sweaters. So that's amazing. Give you an idea. Oh, so is that ok if I jump back in here, Katrina? Totally ready? Ok. So here we've jumped way far ahead on this hat, but basically you just keep repeating, you know, rounds one through four over and over and over, depending on the size of your hat. Um, the size that you're making, it'll be a different amount of rounds here, but you're gonna be ending with the last repeat of a round one. So that would be using your main color. You're doing that slip stitch pattern and after you're done with that, you're starting to get ready for the decreases. I've actually already done one round of decreasing here. You can see that the hat is already kind of pulling in here a little bit. Um After you do one round of decreasing, which I'm gonna show you how to do in just a second because I'm ready for my second round of decreasing here in this hat. After you do the first round of decreasing, then you're gonna do seven more rounds within that pattern. So the, the, you know, printed pattern will lead you through every single round just so you kind of have the idea, you're just kind of following along in the same stitch patterns where you're doing those slip stitch patterns on repeats of rounds one and three and then you're just knitting in the same color that you did your previous round in on the following rounds, you know, so it's, it's pretty easy. Um Once you're ready to do your decrease rounds, all you're doing is on a repeat of a round two. So that means the second round that you're using your main color, you're going to just knit, you're gonna slip, slip, knit all the way around. So here I'm gonna remove my stitch marker, put that on there. Um So to do a slip slip knit, you're just slipping each of the next two stitches as if to knit them and then you're going to knit them through that back loop like that. There's your slip slips, knit and we're gonna continue that all the way around. So whoops, slip slip and then here we go and knit OK, I just had to, oh, and I, and at this point, this is what I really should be doing on this, this, um, round here we should be switching to those double point needles. I'm gonna just scoop those off and put them on my double points. That's why it's was hard for me to make those stitches because it's getting very tight up here. And that's one of the things I wanted to show was at some point, you have to stop knitting on the circular needle and you gotta switch over to your double point needles because it's gonna get too small. Ok. So you just slip, slip and then knit and we're just gonna continue that all the way around. Um On the first round of decreases. So that would be you, you're either working around 3442 or 50 depending on the size you're working. You'll notice here that we're slip slip, knitting all the way around. And then for the different sizes, you may have a different amount of stitches where you just knit them at the very end. So you'll slip, slip, knit around until there's only four stitches left. For the two smaller sizes, the largest size, you'll wait until there's eight stitches left and then you're going to just knit those stitches that are left. And the reason that we're doing that is just for maths sake. It's just so that on, um, rounds after that, things will still be divisible and you'll still be able to maintain that Hounds tooth check pattern all the way up. So that's just a little chance there to kind of reorganize how many stitches you have so that they're divisible by, you know, four eventually. Um So that's what that little bit is about. And after that point when you're on the round that I'm doing right here, which is my second set of uh my second round of decreasing. So this was the first round of decreasing. 3442 and 50. And the next round of decreasing happens down here at 42 50 58. That's what I'm showing you. And at this point you're just gonna slip, slip, knit all the way around because we've already kind of adjusted for those kind of math issues and we're just ready to go ahead and basically have our stitches. So we have half as many after this round. So I'm gonna continue working on that. Um, and we'll see if Katrina has more about, about her sheep. Um, I was just trying to think. So, let's see, what else do we wanna talk about? You know, sheep. Um People are sometimes curious about, you know, the sheep themselves and, you know, sheep, you know, they, they're somewhat long lived in the sense they have about the same lifespan as a dog. And I just, what I'm really hoping for today is I hope that, um, I see a very nice comment that um that commented that the classes taught, taught them a lot about wool and, and you know, sheep from, from fiber to project or, or we even here in the northwest, I don't, maybe this is a national thing, but we have competitions called sheep to shaw. And it literally is teams of, of people and they have to uh spin the fleece and then, um let's see, sheep to salt. So they let me think, they don't have to wash it. They can have it carded and ready to go so that we don't have to start from total scratch, but they actually do have to spin it and then weave it into a shawl within a very short period of time. And it takes, you know, teams to do this and they can have the, they can have the loom worked, so they don't have to warp the loom as part of their time. So, so that's a good thing because it really takes a lot of time. But anyhow, um I just, I really hope that, um, a lot of people aren't aware that the sheep industry is really going through a very difficult time right now. And wool in this country or wool worldwide is having a very hard time because the only, the only kind of wool that people are buying is merino because they recognize that. And I just as knitters, I, I just would strongly en en crochets and weavers and all that. I, I would strongly encourage you to support, you know, your independent, I mean, it doesn't just have to be spoiled sheep obviously, but just support, um, you know, your local wool producers. Uh, look in your States to see if you have um, sheep and fiber festivals and um just really encourage you to work with different breeds. Um, some breeds are actually um my sheep Ariana now, she's passed from very, very advanced old age. She was, you know, deaf and blind. It's deafness isn't such a problem when they get blind. They have to, um, they listened for the rest of the flock and they do really well unless it rains, luckily it's very dry here. But when it rains, they get really confused because they can't hear the flock as well. So then you have to go out and rescue them. But, um, anyway, but Ariana was a Lester Long Wolf and the Lester Long Wolves are what they actually um raised um in colonial Williamsburg. So it's a very old breed. It's a very historic breed. It's fairly coarse. So it's really good for, I mean, personally, I think Ariana's wool is, is quite nice. Um, but it's really good for more like sock yarns and things. It's sturdy, you know, because back in the day, you know, they didn't have polyester. So again, you have different types of yarn, different types of wool, depending on what you're gonna do with it. I have a friend who spins in the grease. So she's actually spinning with what we would consider dirty wool because that's what they did. She does historical reenactment for, um, the Hudson's Bay Company, which actually so true fact, um, Hudson Bay, one of their very first, um, trading posts um, in the western part of North America, Upper North America is actually just up the road from me. Um, Spokane House. Um, So it was uh um anyway, so when you do historical reenactment, if you want it to be really waterproof and you spin it in the grease, that landlord will keep it the waterproof miss um wools actually fire resistant as well. That oops, sorry, I have a couple of questions here. I'll make sure to pick up, but I just wanna encourage you to try different sheep breeds. Um help keep these breeds alive. Um Like with Ariana, I actually get letters from colonial Williams Williamsburg checking to see if she was still alive because it's such an endangered breed. There's not very many of them around. I could never get her to, to produce lambs for me because she was already getting, getting older when I, when she came here when I re brought her to rose, but, but she was worth every year. She was a wonderful sheep. So I have a question. Do you experiment with different spinning techniques to create u unique yarn textures or thicknesses? Well, Helen, um I do in my own hand spinning. So a little bit, I'm not an expert hand spinner by, by any means. But I do do some hand spinning and I do kind of play around trying to do, you know, more of a worsted technique or more of a woolen technique, you know, for spinning. Um Again, I don't have a lot of time to spin unfortunately. So, um, I wi I wish I did, but certainly it's a lot of fun to do that. And, you know, different yar, again, different walls, different, different rovings are going to respond differently. So you'll find that when you spin that the, the, the wool really kind of speaks to you and it kind of tells you again, just like I tell my processor to spin it to whatever they feel is optimal. Um, you kind of feel what the yarn wants to be and, and as that wool runs through your fingers, you, you kind of get a feel for it. I personally, I'm not a big fan of doing real fine knitting. So I'm gonna tend to want to do more of a bulky yarn. I'm learning to do what is sometimes called navajo plying, which I kind of enjoy. So there's a lot of things you can do in the spinning process too. Yes, make different, different types of yarn. Um And that's really fun. I, I strongly encourage everyone to, to try spinning too because it's, I really enjoy spinning. I, I think I like spinning even more than knitting. But, um, Wendy was asking, is there a particular fleece from a sheep in your flock that sp holds a special place in your heart or stands out in terms of quality Winnie? That is probably the toughest question. I think I've, I could answer. I really love my sheep. So, um, well, I will tell you that my sheep Thor, so Thor was the Gotland weather, Gotland Cross weather and he was my bellwether. So literally the bellwether. So weather is a, a neutered male sheep. And the bellwether would have a bell around his neck, literally a physically a bell around his neck. And he was kind of, he would be um kind of work with the shepherd in a sense that the shepherd could tell where the flock was because of the bell weather. And in my case, Thor, there's not, there is kind of an alpha sheep sometimes like I would definitely say may, she's a, a we big Wednesday they use, she's, she's definitely my alpha at the moment, but she's very loving and very kind. But, but she pretty much sets the pace and the rest of them follow. The Thor was definitely my bellwether and that I could, I could just go out and call Thor. Um I don't use sheep dogs um to herd my sheep. I actually, I have such a small flock. We're only on about 40 acres and I have livestock guardian dogs that watch over my sheep night and day. Um, there's a pack of them and yes, there's, there's so, they're all, there's my nail. There's my mama Nell and that was Otto. Otto was already an Ancient Great Pyrenees when we moved to the ranch. Um, he's now has his special gravestone on the hill, but that was my mom and Nell. So, you know, it's, it's hard to say So anyway, but Thor Thor was definitely my buddy and one year when we had terrible terrible smoke, he, he had um respiratory issues from an illness when he was a lamb and when he was shipped here. And anyway, we had a horrible year where the smoke was really bad and he, he ended up with pneumonia. But anyway, it's um, I love Thor. Um, so this last batch of yarn. So it takes months to produce in case you're curious, it takes months to get yarn produce. So I was on a wait list for, I think four months to send in my fleeces in July. I still haven't been billed for the incoming weight. So you have to pay when you in income, the weight, you have to pay for that based on the, the incoming weight. So another reason you wanna pick out all the garbage you can. And so I have on the invoice for that. So she probably hasn't started processing it yet. So it'll probably be another two or three months before the next batch of spoiled sheep hits the shelves. Um Just because it's, it's that long a process just, there's always a wait list to get your things to the processor. Um So that's really tough. But, um, anyhow, so I really love, I've talked about little Joe. Joe was just a g, he's such a gentle sheep and he's such a plushy, plushy. He has kind of a, almost a bluish gray, um kind of place. I do. I have a special place in my heart for Joe, but it's just so hard to say, you know, I love, I love my sheep and they all have so much personality. They're not all friendly. It's funny, the sheep that came here, came here like I bought are much friendlier than the ones that were, that were, they actually were born here. Like the ones who were born here, don't know how good they have it, but the ones that came here later they know. But um real quick, I'll just answer the question real quick. Um I was asked if I have the type of goat that makes cashmere. I don't have any cashmere goats. I did have three. I'm now down to one, I had three Porra goats and pur produced a fiber that ranges between Mohair and Cashmere. So there's three types of porra fleece A B and C. So A being like the most Mohali and C being the most cashmere like and then B is in the middle. So, so I did have pors, but they're kind of, I didn't really have a good place to have it processed. So actually I ended up never really doing anything with it. And I will tell you that sheep are like 10% of the trouble of goats. Like, if you have a choice between sheep and goats, sheep, team sheep all the way, goats are a pain in the butt. Sorry. So I probably shouldn't say that on camera, but they're really, they're obnoxious. It's good to get your honest opinion. Ok. So we'll go back to this hat for a minute if that's ok. Um I just finished up doing that decrease round where I slip, slip knit all the way around. And so I have half the amount of stitches and I, you know, just picked up used my double point needles as needed as I went around. And so now I'm doing the next round, which is a repeat of round three, which is the slip stitch pattern done in the contrasting color. So I, I and still working in the same pattern. So I start with those three knits just so I can offset that part where we're doing the slip stitch part. And then we had that Hound's tooth combination here and then a knit stitch and then we'll do another Hounds tooth combination over here. So we slip and then we make one left there. We go and then we slip and we knit and then we pull the fourth stitch from the tip of the needle up and over the last three that we made here just like that. So we're just going to continue working that all the way around that same exact pattern. And it'll kind of because we condensed our stitches into half as many stitches as we had on the previous round. We'll have half as many of those little blocks of color around the hat. Um But it, it makes a nice transition from the stitch pattern. It just kind of, you know, fades up and gets fewer stitches around or fewer groups of the um those kind of clumps of color around until we get to the very top of the hat. So we're just gonna continue working those um this slip stitch pattern all the way around. The next round is just completely knitting in that um contrasting color. And then on the following round, we do another repeat of round one. So that would be with our main color once again. And then on the round after that, that's when we slip, slip, knit, slip, slip, knit all the way around to decrease for the very top of the hat. And then all you need to do is just cut your yarn, run it through all of your remaining stitches and draw the top of the hat close. So it's just very, very easy. Um So we're just about finished with our hat. So, Katrina, I was just wondering if, um, before we go, I'm just curious, like, what is a day in the life of Katrina Walker? Like, like how much of your time is spent doing your sewing stuff, or you're teaching and then how much is spent with the sheep? Like, how do you balance all that stuff? Oh, well, you know, it seems like a lot. Yeah. Oh, well, I mean, I keep hearing about this mysterious thing called, uh, work life Balance and I, I really have no idea what people are talking about. What is that, you know, you do with your ha. Right. I, I don't get it, you know. Well, you know, honestly, the sheep are very, they're very low key, um, you know, day to day. They, they really don't, you know, I'm lucky that our sheep are in pastures. So this time of year there's, there's not a whole lot to do. I mean, obviously make sure they have plenty of fresh water, make sure, you know, so make sure the spring's running, make sure that, you know, you know, if someone's limping, figure out why it's limping, um, you know, that kind of stuff. So, that's a nice thing. So, really, once or so cleaning, we have to clean out the barn several times a year. So that's a big day. Um, so, you know, that's always a nice weekend project and then, um, the thing they have tractors and then, um, the big day is shearing day. So, shearing day, um, is huge and, um, we have to shear them. Um, they need to have their hooves trimmed at least once a year, at least, um, sometimes twice and they get their warmer and their vaccines, you know, every spring too. Um, because there's certain things that they can be susceptible to including tetanus. So you don't, obviously you don't want a sheep dying painfully of tetanus. Um, but, you know, day to day my, I mean, my studio looks out at the sheep pasture so I can kind of monitor what's going on. And like I said, our dogs will let us know if we had a sheep. Um, that was down a while back. She's, we have, I have a lot of elderly sheep in my flock. And so like actually little Joe and Laney Lilac's sister are in our, basically our convalescent pen. So, so they're not really interested in rejoining the flock. They just wanna lay around. So they're in their pen and they're enjoying life and getting treats and, you know, they may spend the rest of their life there. I don't know. But I have a lot of really geriatric shape. So that does take a little more work because you've got to keep an eye on them because they're, you know, they're just getting up there. But the day in the life, you know, it's, it's really hard to say, um, it just depends on how much because I, I just got home from the Great Wisconsin Quilt Festival and then I'm flying on, on Thursday, but that's actually just to go visit our kids in Nebraska, you know, but I've got Houston coming up. So it just, it, it fluctuates a lot. There's no real rhythm to it other than obviously counting noses every day, making sure everybody's ok. But, um, like when I had this batch of that was definitely like, I, I had to block out a lot of time because it's just so incredibly time intensive to get in there. But when in the summer especially, it's, it's so hot sometimes that, you know, I can only work till noon or, or what have you. So it's just, um, probably just like for you Brenda, it's a lot of juggling. But with livestock, you know, our, our life kind of revolves around the animals and feeding time is a big deal and, and feeding time in the evening. So in the winter time it's here in Spokane, it's dark by, we're in the shade of a Butte. Um, we have about a, I don't know, it's probably about a 300 ft basalt cliff. That's our western edge of our property. So we're in the shade early. So we usually feed about 330 in the afternoon because by four o'clock or so it's dark. And so, um, feeding time is really when we kind of check in with everybody. Make sure everyone's ok and nobody's missing or, you know, nobody's limping or, you know, what have you. So, um, that's really kind of the, the big maintenance. Yeah. And there's, that's treat time. So, actually that's little Joe on the right. Um, getting, he, Joe loves treats. He doesn't want me to touch him. Which kills maybe because he's so cushy, he's like a little teddy bear but he loves treats. That's mama. No. But, but yeah, so it's just, um, it's a lot of everyday checking in but the, the sheep themselves, unless I have a bunch of fleece to process. It's pretty low key. But I do have to try to get myself block out some time and get into the fleece barn. I have about, I think I have about 70 fleeces right now on hand. So, if anybody wants to buy my yarn and I'm going to be having roving process. So in a few months there will be spoiled shape roving available through Kimono Moo Momo as well. Right now there's 12, there's 12 different sheep. I think it's 12 different sheep. I know there's at least 12 different yarns that are available. Again. This is all small batch. You know, I just, I only have so many sheep and there's just only so much time and it's very expensive to produce yarn. It's, it's a big outlay to, but I want knitters to be able to work with it. So, you know, I just, I don't pay myself because I can't afford to pay myself. Um, without, and without it being completely unaffordable to everyone. So, so it's, it's a labor of love. But anyway, I'm, I'm kind of babbling right now but it's, it's just a lot. I mean, I asked you kind of an open ended question. So it's ok. Ok. So unless anybody else has any questions, let me just check in here real quick. I think we've covered a lot of ground, so I think we're good. Yeah. Um, ok, so I just wanted to ask you one more question before we go. Unless you have anything you wanna add. Um, well, someone just asked if it's hard to get shares and here in the northwest, luckily we actually do have quite a few shares and, um, they work full time so year round. That's good. Oh, actually before I, I ask you my, my final question, I just wanted to make one more, uh, have one more thought about this hat. So I've led you all the way through to fastening off. You know, you're gonna run your yarn through the remaining loops at the end, pull it tight, weave it in and then don't forget to block this hat. I just wanted to specifically mention that because as I was working with this yarn more so than other yarns that I've used before. It seemed to bloom a lot. And so if, as you're knitting this up, you're, you know, you can kind of see in my sample here, you can see a little bit of light coming through the stitches between the stitches a little bit. Once you block that, it seemed like it puffed up, it swelled up and it bloomed so nicely and it just feels so soft and I just love how I love what the blocking did to it. I mean, it already felt good before I did that, but when I blocked it, it just gave it a plumpness that it didn't have before. So I just wanted to make that little comment. Don't forget to block your stuff. You guys don't skip that step. Um And definitely do a w like a water block, like get it all wet, soak it, you know, squeeze out as much water as you can and then let it dry. So, um ok, so my last question for you, Katrina is, I've been wondering like living on this picturesque ranch with the sheep. This is like the thing that knitters and crocheters have daydreams about. I mean, we think, oh, work was so hard today, man. Wouldn't it be amazing if I could just live on a sheep farm? It's like a thing that's very common for us to have these daydreams about. So I'm wondering since you're living that life, like, what are you daydreaming about? Is there anything left? I daydream about retiring so that I can actually sew and knit and spin and do all the things I want to do, honestly. Yeah, that's the next step. Right. That's the irony is when you do it for a living, you know, you never have time to actually work on your own projects. So, um there's a really great book called Hit By a Farm. So if anyone fantasizes about being a sheep farmer, now they're producing, you know, sheep for, for eating, not for spinning. But, um, I, I highly recommend Hit by a farm because it's, um, what it's coming from, it was written by someone who, her, her partner grew up on a farm and stuff. But, but she didn't. And so it's very much they've made, they made all the mistakes, they did all this. So I, I think it's a really good, realistic, um, kind of viewpoint. I mean, there, there's times you just wanna throw it, I mean, it's, it's, it don't get me wrong. I mean, it's work. Oh, no, I'm sure it's more beautiful. It's so much work. Um, all the time. I mean, we just, we, we rarely leave and we, I mean, other than like, I have to leave for business, but one of us has to be here or we have to hire a ranch sitter just to make sure everybody gets fed. And so, um, I mean, it's, it's living the dream, don't get me wrong, but it's, but it is huge amounts of work. If, if you really value your time, just kind of chilling out, then it's not for you. Yeah, that's for sure. All right. Well, I just wanted to say thank you to everybody for being here. I really appreciate you guys. I appreciate your questions and your comments. This has been super fun. I've learned so much from you Katrina. This has been really like, it was really, really fun to do this event together. So thank you guys all so much for being here and we'll see you in another live sometime. Bye everybody.