Virtual Sheep to Shawl contest 2021

After a year of being cut off from all our fibre friends, a group of us decided to see if we can still have some fun while working within local health guidelines.  The result, a virtual sheep to shawl.  

We worked with local fleeces and a combination of homework and team days for filming and planning.  The finished shawls will be judged by local weavers and the audio-visual submissions will be judged by local storytellers.  

I hope you enjoy it.


Come over to youtube and click the thumbs up if you enjoyed this!

here's a video with more details on the processes and people

That was wonderful, and so much fun to watch!  Thanks for sharing!

It's a notepad!!!

I'm so glad I watched the longer video to get all the explanations and introductions!

My kids LOVED how you had the words on top of the "notepad" shawl at the end!

I'm feeling beat right now, so I'm posting to say I think of your journey often, and I look forward to viewing the above tomorrow.  For now I'm off to bed.

So very cool. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for sharing, It is beautiful!!  I have never sheared a sheep but i did get some raw wool I had to clean and scour. Then spun it and started some mittens. They are still in my to get to sometime bag, along with a few other things :-)   In the summer I like to switch t cotton or  linen  to work with.

Hi, I love this. How can we purchase these items? Can you text me the answer? I don’t always go to this site. Thanks

Awesome video! I'm a beginner spinner and weaver, but an old hand at crochet. It's soothing to watch the process, and I needed that this morning. Thank you.

Beautiful job!!!  I so enjoyed watching this.  I should record what I do one day.  Now you have me motivated to do more!!!

thank you everyone for your kind words.

With this contest, we timed how long each step takes.  Some of it wasn't part of the contest (like dressing the loom or spinning the yellow warp), but we tried to get a sense of how long it took anyway.  

On the whole, this shawl took over 60 maker hours.

If I was making it production style, 60 hours sounds about right for a fully handspun shawl made from raw wool.  At minimum wage per hour (but let's face it, this isn't minimum wage skill - hired out, my cost is about $30-50 per hour and people are happy to pay that)... I'm seeing why makers say "oh, I couldn't possibly sell that, no one would be willing to pay me for my time."

That's probably why it's so difficult to find fully handspun shawls for sale.  

I loved the long version and have saved it to view again in the future. Nice to put a face and voice to the name r! And the concept of duplicating a sheet of yellow paper, with margin and lines was creative! Now I want to try it on, even though yellow is not my color.

How long before we get to hear about other entries to the competition, or the final results?

Give my complements to the rest of your team!

I love this!  I'm so glad you documented it so others can see as well.  Thanks for including both videos so we can learn more about the team behind the project!

Here is a shawl made by Team Shuttlefish!
In the video, she talks about the difference between cloth right off the loom and fulled (or finished) cloth.  



All I can say is the shawl is gorgious.  The video doesn't do the colours justice.

The other contest entries. https://vhwsg.ca/activities/virtual-sheep-to-shawl/