Saturday, August 08, 2009

An overdose of cuteness

We're in the middle of a lamb explosion at the moment... as predicted, Boo wasn't far off dropping her lamb. I spotted her off from the group this morning and we watched through the window as her lamb arrived over breakfast.

After Astra was born I'd written Cadbury's breeder as I suspected he was throwing the black and white babies and if so, the 'black' and white babies might actually be moorit (chocolate) and white, which would be fabulous for me because I LOVE choccie sheep! That'd also mean Star was black carrying moorit for Astra to be moorit. Raylene kindly confirmed my suspicions as moorit babies can be nearly black looking when born and the fleece lightens up as they grow into dark chocolate, then milk chocolate, carmel and finally a pale cafe au lait colour.

Boo had her lovely little girl this morning and double-confirmed everything though... her baby, Andromeda, is a stunning JET black. (And as an aside - GO CADDY... all these little ewe lambs!)

Here is little 'Rommie taking her first steps with her mum Boo snuffling her. Boo is a black ewe but the outside of the fleece gets quite brown from the sun. The sheep behind the wire are young moorits.

If you look close, you can see the umbilical cord, freshly severed.

Aw... too cute!

And here is where you can really see the difference! Rommie on the left is black, Astra on the right is definitely NOT... she's self patterned moorit. :)

And just because they're cute... Astra 2 days old

Luna and Stella, 3 days old

Now we're just waiting to see what the other two English Leicester girls do. :D

As far as my knitting, I'm finding I really like the challenge of something new or different. It's a bit odd for someone who spent the better part of a year too intimidated to figure out some of the very basics but there you have it. So for my next few projects I've chosen things that, for my experience, are going to be a challenge. For my sockyarn, I chose this - the "Spring Forward sock". It is more difficult and fiddly than anything I've attempted before. My Ixchel Laceweight is going to become the Cashmere Merino Energy Wave Shawl. As it's my first time with true laceweight yarn, I wanted something I could take back easily if I flubbed. (I still suck at fixing my mistakes.) I've been looking at cast ons for that and I think I might use the one which is like a normal cast on except there is a crocheted chain between each stitch. Sounds weird but it looked nice and stretched well when I test knitted one on fatter yarn today.

And completely unrelated... I went and looked at what I'm hoping will be my new car today! I'm waiting on the RACV inspection but pending that I'll have wheels of my own again! *excited squeak*

No comments: