Meet the Sheep!

For those of you who haven't visited in person, I thought it would be nice to have a virtual sheep introduction - right before fall shearing, when the sheep are looking their best, except for being a little wet with morning dew! I have Icelandic sheep, which are a rare breed in the US and the only breed in Iceland.  They come in a bunch of colors, and have a dual coat, with a long staple outer coat and a shorter staple inner coat.  We sell our fleeces and fiber to spinners and felters here.  

Icelandic fleece is especially suited to felting.  This means if you are a spinner, and you are washing an Icelandic fleece, you need to be EXTRA careful to NEVER hit warm wet fleece with cold water or agitation.  You will instantly felt it.  This is a benefit if you are a felter, obviously.  The wool will literally felt on the sheep, as often happens in the spring, after they are rained and snowed on all winter.  Then, we shear off an Icelandic "Phelt" - big beautiful long wooled hunks of fake pelt.  When these are washed, you can either use them in felting projects or as fake fur. If you are interested in these, contact me.  They are a neat product from the sheep for the creative crafter.

But, I'll leave spinning and felting tips for later.  If you have specific questions, leave them in the comments.

If you are interested in a particular fleece from the fall shearing, contact me.

Daisy and Dharma

Two of our Black and White girls

Basil

White Ram

Epsilon

Black and white ewe

Bright and Alpha

White ewes

Amidala

Moorit grey horned ewe

Chewie

Moorit Ewe (our oldest sheep!)

Firaga and surprise Guinea

White lamb

Dusk and Aurora

White and Black Mouflon ewes

These aren't all of our sheep, just the ones who weren't feeling shy this morning.  Hope you enjoyed their pretty faces!

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Welcome to Unplanned Peacock 2.0


 

Hi all!  I'd love to welcome everyone to my fancified new website!  I am hoping it will be a better user experience for my customers and myself.  One thing that is going to be a lot of fun is this blog section where I can keep you up to date in a more complete and personal manner on what is happening at the farm, with the yarn, and with our wonderful customers.  Notice also that I will now be using Twitter to update all my friends on timely basis, and this will show up on the front page of the website.  (I've resisted Twitter in favor of Facebook and Ravelry up until now.)  For any new found friends who might be meeting Unplanned Peacock Studio (UPP for short) for the first time, let me tell you about our little dyeing and farming operation.

I'm Natasha Laity Snyder, and I started UPP in 2008.  I have a degree in costuming, and dyeing and painting costumes was my favorite part of the job.   After I learned to knit, it was a natural transition for me to start dyeing yarn.  I have been lucky to find many supportive friends and yarn shops that have helped me build my business.  I started attending fiber shows in 2009, and more and more people have gotten to knit with Unplanned Peacock Yarn as the years have passed.  We are still a tiny business though.  I do all of the dyeing, my husband, Mark, helps me skein the yarn, and friends like Jolaine Kooger, Courtney Vengrin, and Joanna Roye help me at fiber shows.  

Unplanned Peacock has been fortunate to partner with many yarn shops in the area (there's a current list here), and we are thankful to them for supporting our business, and to their customers for purchasing our yarn.  If you live in an area where UPP yarns aren't sold, we are always happy to work with local shops, so please refer us (we even give a free skein to you if your LYS starts carrying our yarn!)  

In addition to all the dyeing, we take care of our flock of gorgeous Icelandic sheep.  Icelandic sheep are an artist's dream sheep (along with Shetlands) because they come in all the colors of the fiber rainbow - black, grey, white, brown, and cream.  They are also extremely intelligent animals (for sheep, anyway).  I think my sheep merit their own blog post, so I'm going to stop talking about them now.  (Trying to get a shepherd to stop talking about their sheep is like trying to get a parrot to stop chattering.) Our sheep's fleeces are for sale, and I'm happy to sell it to you raw, washed, or washed and carded.  I don't dye the Icelandic wool, because it's lovely enough in it's natural state. 

Any questions?  I'm happy to answer them.  Comments?  Let me know how you like my new site.   Please, send me pictures of what you make with my yarn!



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