So, some time ago, I was on etsy, breaker of bank accounts and destroyer of lives, and I saw some CVM for sale. That’s California Variegated Mutant for anyone who doesn’t spin, and it’s a lofty, bouncy medium wool, which is also the first thing I ever handspun—on a drop spindle, no less. So I was taken by a moment of fancy, and decided to get some more.
The clever person who owned the farm asked me . . . do you need a SE2SE passport sticker?
And I fell right down the rabbit hole. Apparently, it’s a program to try to preserve rare and threatened sheep breeds, sending collectible stickers to put in a “passport” when you purchase wool of the breeds in question from farms taking part in the program. Included are breeds from Shetland, which has long been a favorite of mine, to things I’d never heard of before, some of which sound downright made up. Florida Cracker? Barbados Blackbelly?
There are a total of 20+ breeds, and while I doubt I’ll ever find them all, I thought . . . wouldn’t it be interesting to put them all together in one project? So I started buying the wool in question, in small 4oz lots, with the intention of spinning them all to a similar weight, and block by block, building an afghan out of all these rare sheep breeds. Because that’s the kind of nerd I am. The fun kind.
So here it is, my passport, in which I’ve collected a whole bunch of stickers, but only just started the immense undertaking of the spinning, with this, that first Lendrum bobbin, 1/3 of the CVM I bought at the beginning of the month:
Wish me luck with what’s almost certainly a bigger bite than I’ll ever manage to chew!
Knitting Over the Rainbow 