About West Coast Colour

I arrived into the world in Scarborough Ont as the baby that refused to die as doctors had predicted. My little behind was saved by the good folks at Sick Children's, Toronto and for many years I was known as “Dr. Mains Miracle Child”. I am eternally grateful to those doctors/nurses and researchers who took a chance on me. I’ve tried to be worth your efforts. Fast forwarding several years includes a family move to Ottawa where I spent the remainder of my childhood.

My life always included as many animals as I could cram into it. I dragged home frogs, toads, snakes, mice, cats and once a dog. My mother was tolerant, to a point, as evidenced by the cooking of spinach to feed to the tadpoles (didn’t work, find something better if you have tadpoles)

I met a hot guy in Grade 10, we stuck together, and eventually moved to Calgary where we both found out we didn’t possess much in the way of life skills. I had however learned to knit socks for him.  We survived and despite us, so did our first child. We moved out to the West Coast where we continued to survive and so did our second child. I continued to drag in animals that I felt needed a home. At some point I went back to high school and eventually became a nurse.

When that was not enough, we opened a wool store. I learned alot about running a business,but far more importantly how to spin and weave. It was a slippery slope and little did I know it was about to landslide. The sheep arrived most innocently when an acquaintance casually asked if I knew anyone who would adopt one (we can leave out whether or not the sheep still has it’s balls :P) sheep. Oh, a sheep? Needs a home? “Of course I would love to have a sheep” “Why not a sheep?” I lived in a duplex with a postage stamp backyard in the middle of a city that seriously did not believe in livestock in backyards. Odd I know! ( the city not me) I actually was happily telling my dear husband when I thought ‘ huh, wonder where they are going to live?” In good time the place was found,

Whiley and his daughter Sarah -oh yes- the sheep, 1 morphed into 2 as singular sheep are lonely, they not unlike people, like their flocks around them,arrived.  A few years passed, another sheep was adopted, then another one, then there was Adagio the infamous Llampaca. Soon it became apparent that sheep were a fixture in our lives but we didn’t live together. We drove 15 minutes each way to get to our sheep. They needed more space and so did we. We literally stumbled on our answer, I went on a sheep buying trip , I came home with 3 more great fibre sheep and an solution.

The farm that we later purchased has the very farm our first three sheep used to call home, now we’re all at home together and take a look at the view we share!

I eventually retired my career on the coast and moved to the farm full time myself. We were so fortunate to be offered the sale of a flock of CVMs/Romeldales just before we moved and they are the basis of our current flock. So here we are, 4 dogs, 53 sheep, 6 cats, 2 horses.  That is how 2 vegetarians ended up with a sheep farm.

If you’d like to see more photos and video of the farm and all the yarns we’re creating, you can find us on Instagram as westcoastcolour, we like to share more about our flock, what’s new on our needles, wheels and looms, and all the colours we’ve got gently bubbling away in the dye pots. We hope you’ll give us a follow or stop by to say hello.

We are located near the Shuswap Lake in Tappen, British Columbia Canada. We care for a flock of CVM and Shropshire sheep on our 22 acre property and are shamelessly fuelled by coffee.

We are vegetarians, which means we keep sheep just for their fleeces, hence the name fleece farmers. Our sheep live out long lives in the pastures under our care. Sheep can produce beautiful fleeces for many years as long as they remain healthy and happy. And are also full of personality, like any dog or cat, we enjoy getting to spend many years getting to know each other and making lots of yarn.

If you would like to know more about how life is going on the farm, please have a look in our farm journal to read more!

In the future, once some renovations are complete, we hope to open a retail store on the property and have scheduled farm tours. We will keep you updated!

If you have any questions about anything at all, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line and we’ll get back to you as soon as the chores are done.

If you’d like to reach us please send me an email at: info@westcoastcolour.net