4 ms·
In a Sheep to Shawl competition, you have 5 people, 1 sheep, and 3 hours
- Isamu 3y ago>Because the competitors are spinning wool that hasn't been processed, it still has lanolin in it. This makes the wool greasier and more difficult to spin, so the ideal is finding a sheep with less lanolin to begin with. Ha! Exactly what I was thinking when I clicked on the story. Your hands are covered with lanolin just from handling raw wool after shearing. I still have a wool blanket from those days.
- codesnik 3y agoI wonder if it's possible to wash the sheep with a shampoo or something before the competition.
- kaikai 3y agoThe lanolin helps lubricate the shearing blades, and you need to be very careful washing wool so it doesn’t felt. Show sheep get shampooed but their fleeces are trimmed short first.
- Gordonjcp 3y ago*Everything* is covered in lanolin when you're shearing. I used to wear my scruffiest most ripped zip burst no buttons tied around my waist with string jeans while shearing (in particular while bringing sheep out from the pens to be shorn). I'd wear them for the whole week we were shearing, and then just burn them. There's no way you're rehabilitating anything you wore that week into an item of clothing you can wear in public.
- efitz 3y agoI never thought I would find sheep shearing or weaving interesting but this is a really cool article (and contest). It’s really cool to see how people can perfect these somewhat anachronistic skills and even optimize them to accomplish a task in hours that usually takes much longer.
- dylan604 3y agoSpinning yarn is one of those things that just catches my fascination. I have a friend that is an avid knitter, and spinning yarn is the next thing she wants to get into. In the style of those social media fads of creating your team of friends to survive the zombie apocalypse together, she always comments on how people want friends with guns or medical experience. She always says "but i can make clothing out of string!" which might come in handy
- Kerrick 3y agoMy wife has always crocheted, and she learned to spin during the pandemic. Then she got a blending board and started making her own blends. Now she’s gotten into dyeing, having just finished her first attempt. She’s already thinking about getting a drum carder to make her own roving. It’s pretty tempting to go deep, and every step back in the process can add fun!
- klyrs 3y ago> "but i can make clothing out of string!" Making cordage is one of the most underrated long-term survival skills out there. Finding good sources of fiber is the first step.
- bregma 3y agoMy wife (who spins and knits) has a number of acquaintances who engage in sheep-to-shawl competitively. They're all uber-geeks of the textile world. It's just like those build-a-game-from-scratch-in-a-weekend contests. Except for the sheep.
- uhtred 3y agoSheep shearing is brutal for the sheep, at least in a commercial setting where time is money. They take half the sheep's skin off too.
- WorkerBee28474 3y agoNo it's not. No it doesn't. You're just making that up. If you want to make an extraordinary claim, provide evidence.
- nightfly 3y agoThey aren't making it up, but ar propogating a lie they've seen elsewhere
- uhtred 3y agoA lie, really? Check yourself. https://www.woolfacts.com/ https://www.woolfacts.com/ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/16/secret-videos-reveal-workers-beating-sheep-on-english-and-scottish-farms https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/16/secret-v... https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/horrific-footage-emerges-claiming-to-show-scottish-shearers-punching-sheep-in-the-face-558505 https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/horrific-footage-e... https://www.thestatesman.com/supplements/8thday/the-violent-sheep-wool-shearing-process-1502759047.html https://www.thestatesman.com/supplements/8thday/the-violent-...
- nightfly 3y agoMy family raised sheep for like 10 years...
- sillystuff 3y agoI had no "sheep knowledge" before some quick googling... They are not making it up, extreme gratuitous cruelty has been documented in commercial sheep shearing if you care. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCeKbMRlJUU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCeKbMRlJUU That video link was from: https://www.woolfacts.com/wool-and-animal-welfare/shearing/ https://www.woolfacts.com/wool-and-animal-welfare/shearing/ That article goes on to state that the same investigators uncovered cruelty at 117 separate operations, so does not appear to be an isolated incident by, "a few bad apples".
- acdanger 3y agoMy friends mom attended this. She mentioned that the wool that was used in the later stages was dyed and clearly wasn’t the same wool they sheared at the beginning. Still a cool concept.
- Blackthorn 3y agoWhile a little disappointing at first, after thinking about it I suppose they have to use the dyed stuff instead. Otherwise they won't be able to get the impressive patterns and artwork that are part of the point of the competition.
- fotta 3y agoFrom the video in the article, the warp and pattern are preset on the loom by each team and they use the shorn wool for the weft.