Natural hotsell Colored Mioget Shetland Original Cabled Beanie

This is a really special one... It's a size large, so it's perfect for everyone who has a big head like me, or lots of hair!

This is from a yarn lot, close to my heart, that I blended for my parents' mill from some very special sheep. They were pure lines from the Shetlands that Colonel Dailley imported to North America. Here's a little bonus breed history and information on gene-linked traits for you to nerd out on while appreciating soft, warm wool...

These fleeces were from West Coast sheep gifted to me by a dear friend, from the Cochran and Shady Oaks flocks. The blend was primarily from three individual sheep from several years' clips. Cochran Alana, Shady Oaks Fleur and Shady Oaks Calbaut were the main contributors to the blend. They were all three moorits (reddish-brown) hotsell sheep with a dilution gene, which can make their wool go to a creamy shade of the base color. Sometimes this affects a reddish-brown fleece in a way that it lightens all pigmentation to a tawny taupe, a yellowy gold or a warm rosy brown. It's an interesting affect! What we observe with this dilution gene are some strongly evident linked traits, like woolier faces and legs, often higher luster and translucency in the wool and a tendency to have less distinction between primary and secondary wool follicles resulting in a more uniform crimp style and finer average diameter of each fiber compared to contemporaries in the same flock. Also dilution seems to disallow some patterns from expressing, like Shaela or Iset (roan.)

Anyway, that's what we have in the yarn lot that I knitted into this hat. There's a lot of history in the fibers that will take you back a thousand years to the windswept Shetland Islands.

I hope you enjoy wearing this hat as much as I enjoyed making it! Dios te bendiga!