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A Good Kind of Tired

Trying to make the most of what might be our last good weather weekend of the fall-

Caught up on hoof trimming for Felix, Frank and Esther-

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And tried to tidy up Frank and Felix’s fleeces a little-

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Finally dug the rest of our potatoes-

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Moved and replaced a frost-free water hydrant, mowed, and spent a fair bit of time playing ball with tiny Gus to work out some of his crazy energy-

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And when I was all done, I noticed something kind of fun and completely unexpected.

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Someone had come by and put these cute little pumpkins on all of our fenceposts, and all the way down the street as far as I could see.

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No idea who it was, as we must have been busy out back when they came by.
But they made me smile.

And Now for Something Different

I’ve not been getting a lot of wool-work done lately, but have managed to finish a few more tiny birds (12 done so far)

And then yesterday I got the urge to do some garter stitch.

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The fiber is Malabrigo Nube in the Diana colorway, that i picked up in Salt Lake City earlier this year. The chain plying is a bit uneven, but you don’t notice that so much once it’s knit up. Simple garter seemed the best way to show off the fabulous colors and make the fabric thick and squishy.

So there you go. 🙂

And in sheep news, I think that we might have turned the corner with flock relations. During Friday night’s heavy rain I noticed everyone (including Esther) hanging out in the shed. What a relief.

Go Hawks!

Washout Weekend

It’s been quite a rainy couple of days.
But that’s October. And we needed it. So no hard feelings 😉

But the sheep are still being difficult with regards to sharing space with Esther, so there has been some drama in the shed during the downpour. I think it’s slowly getting better, but sometimes it seems like one step forward, two steps back.
Kind of frustrating.

Anyway, this week i tried out another ornament pattern, Christmas Balls.

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It has three designs, and i chose to work the Kilim chart.

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Its a cute pattern, and i think it turned out ok, but i the design probably would show more clearly if I’d used a two-ply yarn, or if i could have figured out a way to block it properly.

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I like it well enough that I’d knit it again, but I found it kind of fiddly doing stranded colorwork on double pointed needles, so it took me forever to make this little guy. Not really a quick project.

So i think I’m going back to making tiny birds (and finishing my shawl!)

Tiny Birds

This week I have been knitting tiny birds.

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They are fun to make- lots of interesting little shaping sections. I’ve started with the Bluebird of Happiness pattern and changed the tail shaping a so it fans out a little bit rather than coming to a point.

The plan is that they will get eyes, and perhaps little additional embellishment and become holiday ornaments.

They look really sharp against some koolaid reds (on taupe colored Griff yarn) I dyed on the run this morning (that’s fruit punch on the left, black cherry on the right)

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so perhaps they’ll each get a red tassel or something.

I’m also trying out a stranded colorwork bauble-type ornament.
Just in the early stages on that one, so no pics yet.

In other news, our baby chicken girls are just starting to lay, so that’s cool.
I love the cute little “starter eggs” (one the left)

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Not really miniature, just kind of petite. And all the ones I’ve found so far are green-ish, so that’s neat.