Author: denisemor

Was off this week on a bit of a pre-Christmas break- and while I didn’t get a lot of wool work done, I did make some progress on my lockerhooking sample-

the plan is to fill in the rest of the open areas with white roving loops. I think that it will make a nice cushion for my home-office chair with a fabric back and fleece stuffing.

Spent a fair bit of time baking Christmas cookies for sending as gifts (and some for local consumption, of course 🙂 )

Also still making incremental progress on the hoophouse- the south end framing is coming along-

And that was enough for one week.

Oh- and I also wanted to share a little wool-on-the-hoof excitement. This morning when I was out in the shed trimming hooves, I got a good look at Felix’s fleece.

It’s so fine and crimpy. And it looks nice all the way back to his rump. Amazing- we seem to have beaten the itchy/felty problem! And his hooves didn’t look too bad either. Good boy Felix!

Got a little sampler started this week-

I’m trying out a couple different textures- white is roving, black is a heavy worsted two-ply. The roving is a little trickier to handle, as it is kind of delicate, but I I like how thick and cushy it is.

And I have another knitting project in the queue that I’m pretty excited about- a new outfit for my good friend Dolores (remember Dolores?)

Well, she’s gone judicial!! In honor of the Notorious RBG-

The kit, complete with earrings and pocket Constitution arrived this past week. Can’t hardly wait to cast on 🙂

Have a good week everyone-

Unspun fun continues this week. Same material, different application!

I have a locker hook (or two) that I acquired a couple years ago at the Jonasson Farm fall fleece sale (back in the pre-Covid days when people actually got together for things like that). Linda Jonasson was making really gorgeous rugs from their roving, and I thought that I might want to give it a try sometime.

So here we are in “sometime”. (Guess the idea had to percolate for a while)

I really love the springy, cushy texture of the loops, and the idea of being able to draft patterns and create unique designs on the fly. So I set about finding myself some backing material,

In a very short time I was able to find someone nearby who had a stash of burlap bags they were willing to trade for wool-

So now I’m all set on that front! Hope to make a start this week. Perhaps with something small first, like a chair pad or something.

And in hoophouse news-we had some really good weather this long weekend, and were able to get a fair bit of building done- hiprails, baseboards, purlins and peak braces are now in place.

I’m so excited- It’s really coming together. Next up, endwall framing-

Here’s a thing I’ve been playing around with recently- knitting with unspun wool.

On the first attempt, I just stripped down batts as I went, which resulted in having to a lot of joins- not a big deal, but kind of slows the knitting progress. In an effort to make the actual hatmaking more efficient, I decided to use a diz to pull out a fairly consistent thickness of roving from each batt

It took a little while to get a feel for it, but then it worked out pretty well!

The roving is very satisfying to knit with, making huge, squishy stitches on size 13 needles.

For these hats I cast on 35 and 36 stitches. Talk about a quick knit!

Here they are a little closer so you can see more of the texture.

Fun to make, and amazingly warm.

I used a Figure 8 type cast on, like you might use for toe-up socks, but with two different circular needles. Then knit the hat upward from one set of the stitches, while leaving the bottom half of the stitches hanging out on the second circular needle.

Once the hat is knit, come back to those live stiches around the edge and either knit a couple rows if you think that you need a little more depth, or just cast off the stitches for the brim, and poof! you have a hat.

Here’s to the sheeps that make all this woolwork possible. I thought this was a cute shot of them all hanging around the shed hoping for some alfalfa treats this afternoon.

Have a great (if distant) Thanksgiving everyone 🙂