Author: denisemor

Meet Wallace!

We brought Wally home from the Whatcom Humane Society yesterday.

He’s a Bassett/Lab mix. Kinda like a long lab on short legs!

Wally is such a great guy. Gets on well with Syd, doesn’t chase chickens (!) and is willing to be friends with Boo kitty if she’d give him a chance.

He met the sheep yesterday too, but they were a bit much for him. Edgar rushed him and he got kinda nervous.

Those sheepers are pretty bold. It was probably too much excitement for one day.

He slept really hard last night.

And in Wool News, it was a knitting week:

Almost down to the armpits on the stashbuster sweater- and I really like how it’s turning out. The colorwork is a nice easy every-other stitch-type thing, with some purling thrown in to make the little color specks pop out. Thinking that I might cardigan-ize it once it’s done, but am not sure yet.

Also not sure whether I’m going to use a different dark-brown wool to finish the bottom, or whether I’ll be going back to the fleece stash to spin up the remaining Border Leicester.

We’ll just see how it goes-

Cheers!

Yep.

I finally got him.
Was just a matter of using the right bait!
Turns out that the little bugger just can’t resist apple leaves and pea vines.

I’d been working on him all week. Getting a little closer each time.

Sometime Wednesday or Thursday I actually had him distracted enough with the goodies that I got to scritch him behind the ears, and I don’t think he even noticed!

So today were were going for the full on catch and hold.

I showed everybody the goodies, then walked them into the shed and plopped them in the feeder.
All the guys, including Griff, came in for the buffet.

Ahh. Sweet victory.

Here we are all hanging in the temporary sheep shed

I did hold and pet Griff twice, and there is photographic evidence, but apparently I look pretty goofy in the pictures, so you’ll have to take my word for it!

Chone says “Hey, what’s the big deal about petting him? I thought I was your little buddy!”

And here is my “Hug A Sheep” picture:

Little Edgar is such a sweet boy, even when he’s soggy.

In Destashing News, we’ve got more white Romney flying off the wheel (thick singles go pretty fast):

And on the other wheel, I’ve got bargain shetland that has been hibernating for some time up in my office-

Almost on the needles-

This pile hopefully going to work up into a nice simple top down raglan.
Another designing-on-the-fly kind of thing, I think.

Just my style.

Have a great week!

Some wool highlights from the Evergreen State Fair!

Rainbow Romney:

Wool show!

Award winning colored fleece:

Award winning white fleece:

(no- I didn’t being anything new home)

Cheviot (?) primping for the show ring:

Gotlands all tuckered out:

Ok, that’s all I had time to see in Monroe.

In other news , I finished knitting the big hooded scarf thing- it’s drying and blocking right now, so not ready to be modeled, but here are some sneak peeks.

The one problem- or possible problem, is that since I knit it out of a whole bunch of different kinds of yarn, the gauge changed from one side to the other. So, same number of pattern repeats= different length.

The question is- do I rip out the last two inches or so of the longer side, or do I just try to embrace the asymmetry of it.

What say you?

And here is this weeks skein. I think it’s so lovely. Soft and lofty and full of potential.

Out of the fleece stash, into the yarn stash!

Sorry. No sheep shots today.

It’s a soggy day on the homestead.

So, first off- the fleece!

Finally was able to clip a couple little samples of fleece from my woolly friends (a little treat to distract them helps a lot!)

You can’t really make out the markings on the ruler (at left), but it’s total length is 5 inches.

At this point, Franklin and Felix are just under 5 months old, and Chone, Edgar and Griff are about a month behind them.

Took these photos while I was out hanging with the boys today.

Edgar

Chone

Franklin

I have to say, it is about the coolest thing in the world to have these woolly buggers out in the pasture. Just love the guys.

On the de-stashing front , I finished up spinning Huey this week! Here are my results (minus a skein and and FO that have already found other homes)

Hat and cowl

Four more chunky-weight skeins to play with!

Huey was a fun spin-
Next on the de-stash agenda is white Romney.
This is the same bargain Romney that I experimented on last summer with the cold water wash.
After the first bath, it sat in a bin for a good long time. Wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it.
While is was quite clean, it still had a lot of lanolin in it, and after a time, it got really waxy feeling.
So, I had to give it another bath- this time in nice hot water.

But look at this washwater! It is just milky white. Not a trace of crud anywhere.

Amazing.
So, I have to say, the cold water soak really does get the dirt and crud out. Just not the lanolin.

Here it is all re-washed and sorted

I may just flick card as I go, or I may get out the combs at some point and really hit it hard.
We’ll see how it goes-

In other news, this weekend the boys got fancy, short-sheep-sized feeder (because they went on sale at our local farm store)- here they are trying it out:

It’s a major up grade from the piece of fencing stapled to the wall of their shed that had been holding their hay!

And here are the feathered friends:

Silly chickens sit right by the front door and squawk at me for collecting their eggs.

Poor Rosie. She does look distraught.