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It's been just over 2 years since I first tried to attend the shearing day at Black Socks Sheep & Wool. Well, today we finally made it :)

Oh, the anticipation!


Shearer in action.


A naked sheep :)LOL


A few lambs :D


We couldn't stay the whole time cuz dd got sick, but she liked the lambs and black wool the best.

Mini-Striping Test Swatch

I have a few new colorways in my etsy shop that are "mini-striping." Some people have asked me "How does that knit up?" Well, instead of guessing, I knit a test swatch. This is a 4-color skein called "Earth That Was." It is fingering wt and knit at 8 sts per inch. The length of each color section is approximately equal (this dyelot had a shorter white section than usual).

Here it is...click on it to enlarge.


I've labeled how many sts around each area is. It got a little funky near the top because of the bend in the needle's cable.

Here's my observations at the different diameters:
16-20sts = nice mini-stripes
24-28sts = subtle spiral stripes
32-36sts = looks a bit variegated
40-48sts = funky pooling
52-56 = subtle mini- stripes
60sts = looks variegated again
64-80sts = spiral stripes that get wider as the diameter increases
84sts = the stripes start to turn the other direction.

Somewhere b/w 80 & 84 sts around you could get stable vertical pooling colors...maybe at 82sts or maybe at 84sts but knit at a tighter gauge (like 9-10spi).

The colorways that I've dyed recently that are like this: "Earth That Was/Mini-Stripes," "Green Glow/Mini-Stripes," "Browncoat/Mini-Stripes," and "Alliance Cruiser." Just remember that every knitter's gauge is different and your results may vary. Thank you to "craftdungeon" for letting me swatch from her skein :)