Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair October 22-24, 2010
Talking about trained Shetland sheep! Here is Camille, a yearling ewe, being shown by Lauren. She is a "ghost" kat. As you can see, Camille knows just what to do!
I was in the show ring during the ewe lamb class and the aged ewe class so we haven't any pictures.
On Sunday, the 24th, the Open Wool Sheep Show commenced.
Our first class was for ram lambs. Lauren placed 1st with our homegrown black ram, Midnight. Katie was 2nd with Mapleton Farm Thunder. Our judge was looking for a lot of crimp and of course, soft fleeces.
In the Shetland ewe lamb class there were 13 entries. April Showers was 3rd, Hearttrob (Katie's new ewe lamb) was 4th, Aurora was 5th and Stormy was 8th.
Here is our judge examining Camille being shown by Lauren. This was the yearling ewe class.
This is Katie showning Solitaire. (This same judge picked her for first place at the NC Mtn. State Fair in September.)
She is inspecting Electra's wool. Electra being shown by Joe, Lauren's boyfriend. Boyfriends in our family are expected to help with all aspects of our sheep! :)
Katie's Solitaire won the yearling class and here she is showing for Champion Shetland ewe. The grey katmoget in the front is Scarlet. She was ours and is now owned by someone else. She was the first placed aged ewe.And the Champion Shetland ewe is..........
Solitaire...proudly shown by Katie.In the aged ewe class we were 2nd with Cara, 3rd with Sprinkles, 4th with Shania, and 7th with Amelia out of 11 ewes.
Out of about 25 pairs in the all breed pair of ewes, Cara and Sprinkles placed 7th.
In the Shetland fleece class we were 1st with the black ram lamb, Midnight, 2nd with Heartthrob, 4th with April and 6th with Aurora.
Overall, a very nice show!!
We also entered 7 fleeces in the fleece show and sale. The judge this year didn't judge by comparison--1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. She judged using a scorecard. I believe that anything over a score of 90 was a blue ribbon. All 7 of our fleeces won blue ribbons. Our lowest score was a 94 and the highest was a 98 with Shania's fleece. We were very pleased! We sold one of the two we were offering.
We sent 2 of the show fleeces to Davis Ridge Fiber Mill, in West Virginia. We sent 4 show fleeces to Fleury Sheep & Wool Fiber Processing in Georgia. Can't wait to get them back!! The Fleury's purchased a ram lamb from us several years ago. They raise Shetlands and they love their fleeces.
We didn't purchase many things at SAFF this year. I did get an embroidered long sleeve t-shirt from Sunny Meade Woolies in Kentucky. It has a cute sheep on it, of course! Katie and I both also bought 2 yarn bowls. We first bought small single bowls from Brandon from Davis Ridge Fiber Mill (my husband's second cousin). A friend made them for him to sell at shows. Then we each bought one from Knit Witch. Mine is a large double yarn bowl that I use to hold my roving as I spin. It is wonderful. The roving doesn't run all over the room. Katie bought a shawl pin and then she bought me a beautiful sheep from Fiber Dream Santas made from her Cotswold locks as an early Christmas present. Thank you, Katie!!
SAFF is our favorite sheep related event of the year. It always goes too quickly!!
Breeding groups have been put together and the next event? LAMBING, of course.
