WSWF 2012.......another great year

Where do I start?  This year was my first as show chair for MSSBA and I have so many people to thank, that I'm afraid I'll forget someone.  But here goes........
Thank you to my show committee: Garrett Ramsay, Corinne Rasso, Kim Nikolai, Maureen Koch, and Chris Greene.  You guys are awesome.
Thank you to Juliann Budde for being our announcer, Maureen for being Ring Steward, Maegan Snow for tackling the sometimes confusing job of checking in the class entries and getting placings as the exhibitors left the ring.  Thank you to Marie and Corinne for taking photos and getting pizza for Friday night, the photographer that judged the fleece competition, the our fleece and sheep judge, Letty Klein, our handmade competition judge, Kathy Olmstead.   Thanks to to Penny and Alicia Becker for their help, Chris and Alan Greene for the very nice talk on Flett sheep and AI processes,  to Kim and Bob Nikolai, Theresa and Jeff Gygi for their help.  A special thank you to my husband, Mike,  for the million and one things he did for me over the past week and especially this weekend.  I know showing isn't his "thing", but he sucked it  up and hit the show ring with me this year.  I have no idea what I'd do without this wonderful man in my life. 
Special thanks to all our sponsors and volunteers, without you, the show could not happen.    Thanks to our exhibitors, for traveling and making this show successful.  If I've missed anyone, it is not intentional, so please forgive me. 

Some pictures and placings............more to follow.

Reserve Champion Ram

1st Place Ram Lamb

1st Place Pair of Ram Lambs

OK Acres Ringo

Ringo and I

 

 Reserve Supreme Champion

Champion Ewe

1st Place Senior Ewe

Sommarang Elise

And Gavin Snow

Gavin, Letty Klein (judge) and Elise

  

Reserve Champion Ewe

Sheltering Pines Classique

Garrett Ramsay

Garrett, Letty Klein (judge) and Classique

 

 

 

 

And drum roll please.............the Supreme Grand Champion is........................

Under The Son Coberg

Champion Ram

1st Place Yearling Ram

Supreme Grand Champion

Theresa Gygi and Coberg

 

Another busy weekend under my belt

This past weekend, I was lucky enough to have Garrett Ramsay stop and pick me up on his way to the Michigan Fiber Festival.  This was my first time attending this event and I had a great time, meeting a couple people that I had only talked to on chat lists and reconnecting with folks that I have met in the past.  The highlight of our trip is always getting the chance to get our hands sunk into some nice sheep and fleeces.  I decided, kind of last minute, to enter a few fleeces into the fleece competition and then bullied Garrett to bring some as well, and Garrett ended up with 1st place Shetland fleece, I got 2nd place and then Garrett went on to take Reserve Champion colored fleece.  (Champion was a dark Merino fleece) Not too shabby G, not too shabby.

Rosette for Reserve is hanging off the side of Garrett's fleece

 

And here's Betty executing a perfect photo bomb and she runs through the picture!!!!  

Shortly after this last photo, things started to get completely out of control.......none of us could stop laughing.  The whole photo shoot was supposed to be a silly set up of Garrett and I high-fiving (I know, that's not a word) each other while holding our fleeces.

We thought this would be a funny way to take a picture and it was so much fun to pose for it since we were trying to be ridiculous.  Why not sprinkle as much into our sheepy activities as possible?  

Wisconsin State Fair

I was pleasantly surprised to be asked to participate in the Wisconsin State Fair Hall of Breeds this year.  I thought that the chance to share the FFSSA display kit, and some of my projects would be a great way to expose the public to Shetland sheep.  I was not prepared for the vast numbers of people that filed through the sheep barn, and was a bit overwhelmed by the interest that my little sheep generated while we were there.  It was 4 days of fun doing what I love.....talking about Shetland sheep. 
The most popular comment that my husband and I heard time and again was, "Oh my gosh, they are sooooo cute".   The most popular question was,  "Are these babies or is that their full grown size?" (I brought 2 growthy yearling ewes and 2 Apil lambs) The one comment that got the whole crowd smiling and giggling was, "Oh look, she's wagging her tail".  Now I know that none of this has anything to do with their fleece, but I wasn't there to push fleece, I was there to get Shetland sheep  in front of the public and they LOVED it. 
I did manage to have a table of roving, yarn, and some knitted, woven and felted items, and there were a lot of comments about how soft and nice they were, the favorite item being Sabrina's little felted mouse, Eek, with the little Brahma hen and her nest being a close second in terms of popularity.  I did a little spinning, which fascinated the children and brought back some fond memories for some of the adults. 
Most of the parents took such pleasure in showing the kids the sheep, explaining that we sheared off their wool, then washed it, and made this (the would show them the roving) then they spin it on this, (pointing to a spinning wheel) and then the wool is made into yarn, and they would point out the yarn and then you can knit, weave or crochet one of these (they would point to the finished products).   By having all that stuff right there in one place, I provided an opportunity for parents and children to make the connection between the animal and the end result and that was so unexpected, but very rewarding. 

Kids.......I love them and so does Alabama.  See the lady in the bottom left of this picture?  She's explaining to this little boy that the wool is used to make things.  She lost him about 2 minutes into the explanation, but she was so happy to have the chance to teach him about sheep and what can be done with their wool.  It made me smile. 

This little older lady was so taken with Alabama and she was the perfect ambassador for the breed all 4 days.  Each person got a lesson on why it's so important to clean and sanitize your hands after touching each sheep.  (they had no idea)  The Fair had hand sanitizer everywhere.

Display table and "feelers"  (people that feels things)  big grin

More crowd shots

Define...Excessive

           12" plus length on this fleece sample that was pulled from a bag of "Shetland" wool.
          (I won't say where this came from, as I have no desire to attack people or their sheep) 

This sample is approx. 8" plus in staple length and the shortest sample among 12 bags of fleece that is supposed to be Shetland fleece.  

Excessive length......I found both these samples to be very coarse and not breed typical at all.  I am going to send them in for micron testing, just so I have a number to attach to this for my own fleece sampler book. I'm not even sure how you could spin these fleeces, , they have a lovely color and they would look nice in a braided rug.  These overly coarse and long fleeces are no more breed typical than a merino type fleece on a Shetland sheep....my point being that extremes on either end of the limits is changing the breed. 
Excessive weight......The other excess that I am finding hard to understand is the new weight limits for Rams and Ewes that have been changed in the NASSA judges packet.  Where did those numbers come from?  Where is the historical data that supports this trend upwards in weights?  I'm not trying to be sarcastic or mean, I honestly want to know where those number originated. 
Old ranges were: Rams 90-125# and Ewes 70-100#'s....new limits allow the rams to be 150# and Ewes 115#....  that seems to be changing the breed to satisfy the livestock judges in the show ring.  I don't know why it was changed or where the historical data is that supports such a large increase in size limits.   Over the last couple years there's been a lot of discussion and disagreement about the correct type of Shetland fleece. I actually thought that the only differing of opinions was fleece styles, but now I can see that I was incorrect in that assumption.

How long before Shetland sheep are allowed to be even larger?  This truly concerns me, far more than the fleece debate. 

Longer fleeces, larger animals, loss of crimp and bounce in the fleece, loss of fineness... how much more will we lose before we care enough to say something or take the time to educate ourselves about what a Shetland should be or what they were?
I think it's time for breeder judges to be trained and utilized, it's time to leave livestock judges in the ring with meat sheep.  They do a great job judging the sheep they know,  market sheep, let's leave them to their area of expertise and develop judges that have their own area of expertise.......the Shetland sheep that conforms to the 1927 Standard! 

How many of you feel the breed is being morphed into something other than a Shetland sheep by the large increases in weight limits?  I'm very curious............

Nice Surprise

The Fine Fleece Shetland Sheep Association got a nice mention from a fellow blogger.  This gal did a very nice write up about our Shepherd's Harvest rooing demos on Mother's Day weekend.

Check it out at: Independent Stitch Blog

As usual, I have my mouth open.....for those of you that know me, that should come as no surprise.  :)

Roo, roo, roo your sheep....

Merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream. (yep, I've finally gone completely wacko)

Thank you Tylor for your graphic expertise....

The kids loved it when we handed them some fleece to touch and take with them.

We had to blade shear this guy a bit to finish.

Another large crowd for the demo

Most of this one was roo'd easily, but the neck wool wasn't quite ready and she was finished off with hand  shears

Garrett showing the fleece to the crowd, this fleece was sold right off the sheep and Kim donated the proceeds to FFSSA....Thank you Kim!!! 

Display Booth.....next to the demo booth

Shepherd's Harvest was a great experience and loads of fun for myself, Kim and Garrett this past weekend.  We had planned on doing 4 demos, 2 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday, but the response to the the rooing demo's were so positive and well attended, we just kept going and managed to do 10 sheep!!!!  The weather was perfect and I understand from the event organizer that there were over 8,000 people in attendance at this year's festival.  Sunday morning Sandy (part of the festival organization crew) commented to Garrett that our display and demos were getting a lot of buzz and some very positive comments about how interesting there were to watch.  The response exceeded our expectations, and despite it being a lot of work, we had a blast.  We were given permission to sell the raw fleeces we roo'd as long as the proceeds were going to our organization and we sold 2 fleeces right off the sheep.  We have been invited back for next year's event, and maybe we can use a few of the things we saw and heard at this year's festival to make changes for next year.

Some of the comments that were made were.... "I had no idea that Shetland sheep did that". The best part was that so many people said "This is Shetland? I didn't know Shetland was this nice". And that's why we are working so hard to educate and give the fiber community the chance to see how wonderful Shetland fleece can be.  We also had a range of finished garments that illustrated how to utilize the fleece from various areas of the sheep, as well as a handout that indicated how each fleece type could be used in a finished item.   And once again, Eek, the felted mouse sculpture created by Sabrina was a big hit.

A huge Thank you to Kim Nikolai for letting me stay with her this weekend, plus a giant Thank you to Bob for grilling those perfect steaks on the grill Friday night.  I can't forget to thank Garrett and Tylor for all their help too.  None of of could have done this alone, so I'm grateful for the time and money spent to make this whole thing a reality.

Shepherd's Harvest rooing demo

Who said men don't knit and spin?

Below are a few shots of men doing...brace yourself............women's "stuff"...gasp!  Yes folks, I have actual digital proof that there are men out there that love to knit, spin and weave.  Contrary to what most men are led to believe, "male parts" do NOT, I repeat, do NOT fall off when men engage in these activities.   I'll admit, I did a double take when I first saw that there were several male artisans committing unspeakable acts of creativity, but upon closer inspection, I soon realized they were not only knitting, spinning and weaving, but they were doing it well.   It didn't take me long at all to become accustomed to seeing men sitting at spinning wheels, holding knitting needles or weaving at their loom, in fact, it was rather nice.

Male vendor knitting away the day

The man on the left is the vendor that has the rug loom pictured below.
The gentleman sitting at the wheel is 1/2 of a husband and wife team that dresses in period costume as part of the marketing strategy for their booth.  

Rug loom

Everyday is a gift from God.