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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.

Frank

Chone

Edgar

Clara

Junglegym

Mmmmmmohair

Hueeeeeeeeyyyyyyyy!

(I tried to take pictures of my ragg wool socks-in-progress, but my feet looked weird in all the photos, and you don’t really want to see my weird feet anyway)

Denise 🙂

Sorry I missed y’all last week.
No, we didn’t go anywhere. We had company!
Yep. Had the Mom out last week to visit.

I have to imagine it was a little bit of a culture shock, leaving her comfy condo in the Chicago suburbs to come and hang here with us and all the critters out in the backwoods of Western Washington. But she took it all in good humor, and seemed to enjoy the antics of Clara chicken.

Here’s a for-instance:  Clara is in her favorite spot- giving a whole new meaning to the term “chicken tractor”

(Clara has chosen the seat of the Kubota tractor as her nesting spot. And she looks so sweet sitting there that we’ve decided that’s ok with us) 🙂

While mom was here, we took a field trip to Anacortes for their annual Art Festival, where there were really quite a lot of really nice ceramics, glass, photography, etc etc. Not a whole lot of fiber art representation, but I did find (and purchase) this lovely handwoven blanket:

It was woven by a man named Chule, who is originally from Macedonia.

(We went a bunch of other places too, but sadly, the weather wasn’t great and I didn’t think to take pictures.)

Since Mom returned home mid-last-week, we’ve pretty much gotten back to our normal routine.
Yesterday I helped John, from Marietta Shetlands, show a couple of his ewe lambs at the Skagit County Fair.

That was a good time. Love hanging out with sheep and Sheep People.

But then this morning, I went out to visit with my boys and noticed that Griff has a limp. Clearly something wrong with his left front leg, and he looks a bit of bloated on the right side (?). But we can’t get any closer than about 20 feet.
So, we’ve spent a good portion of today trying different strategies to catch him up.
All to no avail.

We even had someone bring a dog over that, while untrained, has some good herding instincts.
That was kind of interesting, and most of the other guys were pretty amenable to her guidance,, but Griff seems to be a tough case.

Even on three legs, he is pretty quick and springy. Somehow he seems better able to run than walk. I don’t understand that at all. And so he is still out in the pasture, alternately hobbling and resting.

I really hope that whatever is ailing him will resolve itself with time and rest, because it doesn’t appear that he will let me help him. 🙁

On the up-side, Stash Abatement continues apace.

Exhibit A, more squishy shimmery navajo plied Huey yarn.

Exhibit B, white mystery wool “handpainted” (ha!) with red food dye and Wilton’s paste frosting color

Have a good week!

Denise