It’s that time of year again! When Susie is shipping Spring 2012 shares to shareholders excited or surprised (if they forgot that they purchased one!) to get them. There’s been lots of talk on the Ravelry group about what to make with these share yarns, so I thought today I’d show what other people have done with their previous shares to give you some ideas!
Featured below are all spring yarn shares. The spring shares are all 100% pure cormo goodness direct from the farm animals and by Susie’s hard-working hands. The yarn produced is a labor of love, filled with heart-ache, joy, hard-work and patience. How many of the sheep that produced this yarn did Susie sit beside while they gave birth to tiny (or huge! Alabama, I’m looking at you!) baby lambs destined to also create this lovely yarn.
With each share, I like to think about what yearlings added their first clip into the lot. For the Spring 2012 shares just mailed out, it was the sheep named after birds (born Spring 2011) that were shorn for the first time! Robin, Wren, Peregrine! (Large baby) Emu! Indigo Bunting and his twin, Scarlet Tanager! I think about the conversations I had with many of the knitters whose work is featured in this post. It’s lovely that so many of them are active on the Ravelry group and we can all talk about the impending babies!
Speaking of babies, ElysaWolfe knit this in threes: baby cardigan for HowdyPandowdy’s much-anticipated baby girl. This Spring 2011 colorway is pistachio. Fortunately while we’re waiting for new babies to be born, HowdyPandowdy keeps us up-to-date with her own picture posts of her darling girl!
And because this sweater now fits the sweetheart it was made for, here’s a photo! (Do you see the blanket in the background? That was one of the specially woven blankets from the Babydoll Southdowns on the farm. HowdyPandowdy snatched one up and I’m completely jealous!)
CraftyHistorian used her undyed Spring 2009 share to knit this lovely, just-enough-lace-to-keep-you-entertained Peabody:
Flarkin put up a poll to let the people decide what she should knit next. The people elected the Wood Hollow Vest in her Spring 2011 share, colorway Nantucket. (I happened to be one of the people that voted in the majority!) I think democracy worked well here!
SusanM has been without power since Hurricane Sandy hit last Monday. It just came back on a few hours ago. She has had a lovely sense of humor about it all though, and I’d like to think that her son’s been keeping warm in the Staghorn Aran Second Edition sweater she whipped up for him in time for last St. Patrick’s Day. (I know you’ve been dreaming about this sweater since you saw a sneak peek last week!)
In addition to SarahVV being an incredibly kind person, she also has terrific taste in sweaters. This Dark and Stormy is anything but dark and stormy, but is a perfect match for her Spring 2011 Nantucket share yarn!
Trinknitty’s Spring 2009 yarn share became this lovely Textured Shawl Recipe. I’ve been eying this pattern for awhile and with the Nor’easter blowing outside my window, it seems like it would be perfect to wrap around myself and keep out the drafty winds seeping in from the windows.
SarahVV does not seem to suffer as much as other people from Pattern-Paralysis when it comes to her shares. I know plenty of people (myself included!) who just can’t find the perfect pattern for the share yarn. Here’s her Tea Leaves knit from her Spring 2010 share in this cheerful blue!
Finally, I’d like to end with a pattern that was made specifically for the farm. Back when Juniper Moon Farm was Martha’s Vineyard Fiber Farm, Emily Johnson created this lovely sweater, Ethel Mildred Ferguson, for her Family Trunk Project. Check out her blog for the story behind the sweater and the project.
I hope that if you’re just receiving your Spring 2012 share that this post gives you a few ideas of what lovely thing your yarn can become. If you’re having cormo-sweater envy and need to satisfy yourself with a definitely-not-instant-gratification-purchase (remember, the share names are for when the wool is clipped and it takes time for the mill to process the fiber), you can become a shareholder here. Up for sale right now are 2013 Spring Cormo Shares and 2013 Spring Colored Flock Shares.
And Susie brought back half shares, so if a full share is more than you can commit to, you can try it out with a half share!
