Lincolnshire Show 2015

Last week I made my first ever visit to the annual Lincolnshire Show.  I asked my Dad if he wanted to come along with me and so the two of us made our way to the Lincolnshire show ground last Thursday morning.  I gave him advance warning I wanted to check out the sheep and he happy obliged!

Lincoln Longwool

We spent quite a bit of time in the sheep enclosures walking up and down the pens looking at the different breeds of sheep.  This fine sheep to the right was happy to pose for photographs!  There were quite a few different breeds on show including a really large selection of my home county sheep, the Lincoln Longwool.  

This was the first time I had seen a Lincoln Longwool sheep in person and they are quite a sheep!  You may remember from the feature about Corriedale sheep, that Lincoln Longwool were used in the creation of the Corriedale.  You can certainly see why they were used, they are big woolly sheep! 

It was really interesting to see the different sheep breeds close up.  The Rare Breeds Survival Trust also has a stall where they had other breeds on show including Castlemilk and North Ronaldsay.  I loved seeing these in the flesh especially as BritYarn stocks yarn in these breeds (DK in the Castlemilk and Aran in North Ronaldsay).

Castlemilk Sheep

North Ronaldsay

What I didn't expect was purchasing yarn that day!  However, in the sheep area there was a stall promoting Lincoln Longwool sheep.  Members of the Lincolnshire Spinning Guild were spinning with Lincoln Longwool fleeces and available to purchase was some machine spun yarn in lace weight and DK.  Well I couldn't say no could I?  I had in mind Karie Westermann's new design Mahy so I bought six balls to make sure I would have more than enough.

Members of the Lincolnshire Guild of
Spinners and Weavers

There were lots of other things to see and do at the show including old and new farm machinery, various displays and lots of shops.  But for me the highlight was seeing the sheep and purchasing my yarn!