Cunnington Farms, Moab, Utah - a farm tour

At spring break I visited Moab, Utah and the wonderful yarn store Desert Thread there (see last week's blog post for my yarn store review). I had a good squish of the yarn from locally raised sheep, as you do. I fell in love with the natural colors (so, so beautiful) and even though the yarn is not soft I decided a holiday shopping splurge was appropriate and to make an outwear garment of some kind. I selected a gray brown almost purple sage DK weight Tunis blend which Cathy, the sweet owner, told me was the farmer's "proud" yarn.

 

The next afternoon we went hunting for the sheep that my yarn came from and were lucky to find the farmer at home at Cunnington Farms. She gave us a lengthy impromptu tour of all 55 (!!) of her sheep, telling us she likes to proselytize. Apparently you need a lot of land to graze sheep, more than she had, so her well-mannered gentlemen were kept in pens and her lovely ladies in pasture with an alpaca and a rare guanaco on guard against packs of dogs, coyotes and the occasional mountain lion. She was incredibly knowledge and I did a poor job of trying to take down all the information and photos on my phone until I got an error message that my device was overheating. Next time I'll arrive prepared with notepad and pencil!

 

Tunis are "red-heads" with red-gold faces and legs and ivory-colored fleece, matching the red rock of the Utah scenery perfectly. A pair of Tunis sheep were imported to the US in the late 1700s from Tunisia as a gift to George Washington from the Bey of Tunis. By the late 18th / early 19th century a recognizable breed emerged and lived in six southern states. The breed were almost entirely wiped out during the Civil War. The sheep pictured here descend from the survivors, a single flock in South Carolina. They are currently on the Livestock Conservancy watch list. We visited five days from shearing day so the sheep are all wonderfully shaggy. Below is a mixed group of ladies with the Tunis on the right with the smaller red head. And you can see the vigilant alpaca on the left.

Cunnington Farms has an extremely informative website if you'd like to read more. Potential purchasers are given an option to stay on the farm to see which sheep suit which has me day-dreaming again of being a farmer, see my earlier article: Dreams of an alpaca farm  One day perhaps! I've put a few more photos on a Cunnington Farms Sheep Pinterest Board if you want to see more sheep.

Desert Thread, Moab, Utah - a yarn store review

Last week for the Spring Break holiday my family made the mammoth road trip to gorgeous Moab, Utah (19 hours each way!) Over the five years of living in Texas our driving distance has lengthed as we seek out more fantastic places to visit. While packing my current crochet projects and extra yarn I checked on Ravelry for a local yarn store. (I become extremely anxious about the thought of running out of yarn when on holiday. I know I'm not alone in feeling this way. I've written about it here How to locate a yarn store while away) I discovered Desert Thread had recently stashed yarn from customers (i.e. it's open), stocks brands that I liked and even had a Knit Night Wednesday 7-9pm. Result!

I managed three visits to Desert Thread while in Moab including the Knit Night. Yay! The owner Cathy and her sister Rosie are delightful, very knowledgeable and I could have talked to them all day about yarny goodness (if it wasn't for their other customers and my family waiting patiently to go hiking).

The store has been open ten years and is located in the center of town right opposite visitor information at 29 E. Center Street. I was made very welcome and Cathy told me that some Knit Night attendees are once a year regular returnees. I love to sit with others crafty folk, see what projects they are working on and have a bit of a chat. Yarn gatherings have the power to bring complete strangers together in a wonderful way.

 

Of course I had to buy local yarn because that's just what one does - support local producers and small businesses. And then I had to find the farm where the sheep who produced my yarn lived... But I'll write about that in next week's blog post. Sign up for my email (once a week reminder, no spam) if you'd like to see my sheep photos! I just love sheep, don't you?

 

If you're heading to Moab you must visit Desert Thread and please say hello to Cathy and Rosie for me. They have a website Desert Thread and Facebook page too. And I'd love to know if, like me, you seek out local yarn stores when on holiday.