Jester's Sweater

I knew this wasn't going to be an easy "take a picture with one of your favorite sheep" shoot.  While I know that Jester likes me, he was several years old when we got him and, like most of our Jacobs, has never become very chummy.  Oh, he's gotten to where he'll come up and quickly grab a cookie from you, but let's just say Hug a Sheep Day is not one of his favorite holidays ;-).

We trapped him in the end of the barn and then took the end gate down and built Amy an outside fence so she could get as close to us as she could, but not so close that it would upset him.  I bribed him with cookies and was able to get my hands on him a couple of times.  I love how every time I have to do that - for eye checks, deworming, feet trimming... he always immediately looks up at me.  He's the only sheep we have that does that.  I was hoping Amy could capture that and she did :-).

The sweater turned out great.  Everything blocked out just the way I'd hoped - lots of worry for nothing.  Gotta love wool.

Isn't he cute?  I tried to pick color patterns that reflected his special wide sweeping "jester hat" horns.

And I used a duplicate stitch to add a touch of dark gray to the big areas of light gray.  Fun and easy to do.

Annabelly, getting a closer look at her neckline.  The top two inches of the sweater are actually Annabelly, covering where I ran out of white Jester yarn.  She doesn't have a great fleece and I'd probably not really be interested in making a strictly Annabelly item, but I'm thrilled she's at least a part of something special.  She's a funny sheep and our very first lamb years ago.  She deserves to be included :-).

Thank you Jester.  I love your sweater :-).

Thank you Amy.  I love your pictures :-). 

Field shots coming tomorrow, aka the Graham Lamb show.  Of course.  Sigh.