“Shearing is a real art,”
Hubby tried it once and after that, we hired a traveling sheep shearer to come do the sheep. Most times, he took the wool as part payment. My mother-in-law took some of the wool one year and washed and carded it. She used it as batting in a quilt she made. I think she just made it with big sqares stitched in the fabric and each square filled with the wool. She says its a real warm blanket. We had Dorset sheep, up to about 10 one year. I used to love to watch the little ones “romp” through the pasture.
She used it as batting in a quilt she made. I think she just made it with big sqares stitched in the fabric and each square filled with the wool. She says its a real warm blanket.<<<
They are warm, you can buy a regular wool batting, that will work the same as a cotton batting for quilts.
Her idea works also.
Also used old wool clothing for quilts, made a tied comforter.
When I sold them in the shop, I had to laugh, for one of the ranchers wives sent her husband to buy one of our fancy quilts, he wanted the wool comforters for the bunk house.
I had found wool skirts and pants at Goodwill for 10 cents each and used a regular, LOL, old style -hard floor tile for the square and Bill cut one for half and quarter size, after adding the seam allowances.
With those pattern sizes, the cutting went fast and it was all used, with the seams and strips left, being used for weaving rag rugs.
Bill was a cattle man and did not like sheep, once he was given one, he brought it home and then took it to our friend Mary, he made sure that it left.
Another time, a friend gave me a lamb, what a ball we had, I must have had it in the house, for it was being bottle fed, then my month old grandaughter came to visit and the lamb had to go.
We had him out doors and that lamb would dash in the door and have the babies bottle, before you could stop him.
So he went to Mary’s.
One day I was there and went out the back door, to hear the lamb crying, by then he was maybe a year old.
I called Mary and told Her that I would go check the lamb/sheep.
Mary said “There is nothing wrong with the lamb, and you might as well know, he wants his bottle!!!”
“This is the time of the day that I give it to him, for he enjoys it and I enjoy giving it to him!!!”
The humor in this story, is that Mary was past 80 years old, a farm woman, who had no problem butchering her own lambs in her youth and now sent them to the butcher shop, without ever looking back.
The lamb stayed with Mary about 3 years, before he went in the freezer, and I assume kept getting his bottle.....
>>>Most times, he took the wool as part payment.<<<
OH NO!!! Part payment???
At the risk of making your husband sick... Let me splain sumthin.....
Back in the 50’s we used to have itinerant shearers who would come through and shear for the wool... They made a killing!
Even a half baked shearer can roll the fleece off in 5 minutes (Even I could do it in 3 to 3 1/2 minutes - (Australian champion = 56 seconds) particularly Dorsets (head and legs are clear) - an average fleece is about 8 pounds and when we started a Wool Pool and marketed together, the first year we got $1.56 a pound. That would be $12.48 per fleece. Even a slower shearer could do 8-10 an hour - or between $100 and $125 an hour... And, if that was only part..... WOW...
See, told ya hubby would be sick...
Really, there were some back then that only worked for a month or two during the spring and made enough money to live all year by doing the shear for the fleece thing.
Sorry to break the news... Oh, prices are now high $2’s to $3 a pound for good wool.