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Tidying Up

denisemor 3 May 28, 2018October 7, 2021

Finally got a hold of Frank and Felix today, and managed to get their haircuts finished up (Yay!)

Frank wasn’t thrilled to be the subject of my fussing, but was a good boy once I got the halter on him

Felix was another story. He resisted right to the end.
So no pictures on that one.
Man am I pooped.

But they both look fairly respectable now, so I’m calling it good.

In other wool news, I did a little bit of dyeing this weekend!

Trying out Abundant Earth Wool Tinctures

Each packet dyes 7 oz of wool

Since I was dyeing fleece rather than yarn, I decided to go with my big pot, just so that the fleece would be able to move freely in the bath (yes, that is Gus commandeering my chair 🙂 )

Here are the Blood Orange “teabags” dissolving in the pot

And the fleece fresh out of the bath

Fleece in the pot taking up Deep Water in batch #2.

The colors are fabulous. I had a little issue with the Deep Water breaking into bright blue and hunter green- and I’m not sure what I might have done to cause that. Perhaps I screwed up the addition of the citric acid. But once dried and carded together, it all came together nicely- here is a sample skein

May’s Splendor

denisemor 0 May 13, 2018

First rose in bloom, Therese Bugnet

Bearded Iris from a friend

Lilac scenting the whole yard

Deciduous azalea

Fig tree just starting to leaf out- with tiny figs already formed!

Another soft and squishy skein of Esther fingerling weight yarn

The grass is growing like crazy, and the sheep are hard at work munching it down. Just a couple of bales left in the woodshed- much to the chagrin of Boo Kitten, who is usually found lounging atop the stacked hay.

I can’t wait to have a shed full of sweet smelling bales again!

Esther Sampling

denisemor 2 May 6, 2018

Washed up my first batch of Esther fleece this week, and was really anxious to give it a spin!

So, here we have my first go

It’s chain plied- and about an aran or chunky weight. It worked up quickly into a nice substantial swatch

with very nice stitch definition for the latticework pattern. Could see this being a nice weight for nice warm cabled vest.

For my next sample thought I’d see how she handled spun up quite a bit lighter. Here are the two yarns side by side for comparison.

I really like this light two-ply as well. Would be great for stranded colorwork.

Good show Esther! Such a versatile girl 🙂

Frank and Felix Come Clean

denisemor 4 April 29, 2018

Thanks to the rain on Saturday morning I was able to get a hold of Frank and Felix and start to help them out of their messy, felted winter coats.

Frank was a tough job. Most of his neck and upper back was felted all the way down to the skin. I think that he feels a lot better now that he’s free of it, even though he wasn’t too pleased about me fussing over him for so long. I found it interesting though that his chest and sides were starting to shed on their own- I don’t remember him doing that before. At least it made that part of the job go much more smoothly.

Felix’s neck was pretty felted too, but was easier to get away from his skin, so it went a little faster.

Most of the fleece from both boys was not really worth saving, but I was able to salvage some nice chest wool (after trimming away about and inch and a half of felted tips off it all). It was all damp from the rain, so I washed it right away, and was pleasantly surprised at how white it came out (really should have taken a “before” photo)

Both of them have such beautiful wool. It’s a shame that so much of it ends up unusable. I think I’m going to try the fall shearing again this year and see if that helps.

In other wool news, I finally spun up a skein of my saved up Sadie undercoat blended with Edgar’s 2017 fleece.

Now I just have to find the right way to use it.

And I also wanted to share a photo of a little post-sweater project I worked up out of my first skein of Bambam Too 2017 (Schoonover Farm)

Between the rich brown color, soft hand & squooshy crimp I enjoyed every minute of this little cowl!