Category: Blog

This morning I had planned to do hoof checks on Daphne and Fiona. Somehow, one thing let to another, and now they are both sheared!

Amazingly, they both were so nice and cooperative. I don’t know what has gotten into them! 🙂

Though haltered, I didn’t even secure them to a fixed object. They both just stood nicely for their entire haircut. Amazing. Perhaps they have been itchin’ to get our of their heavy coats with the nice warm afternoons we’ve been having?

Anyway, I’m so please to have them done. Only Dottie to go, and I might let her keep her coat a while longer because she’s gotten kinda skinny.

Fiona was a bit scurfy along the topline, but fleece is so much crimpier than prior years, Finer/softer around the chest and shoulders, a with a bit more scritch factor in the rear, but seems to be getting better with age

Daphne’s fleece is really interesting. Shorter than usual, but very crimpy and very dark, I thought Daphne was starting to shed, but it turns out that Fiona was the one with a natural break happening. Go figure.

Exciting to have fresh new fleeces in the processing pipeline.

On the spinning end of things, I’ve been working the last few weeks on small batches of blended dyed wool to restock my stranded colorwork yarn stash. It’s been fun, and I’m enjoying the results so far-

And things are moving along in the garden and hoophouse.

Just separated out and repotted brassicas yesterday. Lots of cabbages, bok choy and broccoli on the way!

And won’t be long until tomatoes graduate to 3 inch pots. I’ve got 8 varieties going this year: Palmento, Thornburn’s Terra Cotta, German Pink, Gold Medal, Brad’s Atomic Grape, Jaune Flamme, and Cuor de Bue Albenga. Just planted 6 seeds for each, but almost 100% germination means that I’ll still have extras.

Alrighty folks- hope y’all have a happy Easter. I found my one egg today, so I’m good 😉

Sorry to have missed last week, but I was away at a retreat organized by the Spindrifters spinning guild down in Seabeck, WA.

Was nice to get away for a few days with the spinning folk. We stopped in Port Gamble and grabbed lunch at the cafe at the General Store. While there checked out the Sea and Shore Museum upstairs and snapped a few photos of these crazy critters.

At the Artful Ewe, I picked up a few skeins of Heidi’s amazing suri silk cloud yarn in luscious, fruity colors.

I just love this stuff. Carrying a strand of it along with another yarn makes the fabric feel so luxurious ( i did that with the back of my first Alcott vest).

From Port Gamble we headed straight down to the Seabeck Conference Center, and got spinning!

I took Moto, my espinner, and worked from rolags to create some new blended colors for stranded knitting-

That is the resulting two-ply yarn of the blendy colors on the left, and a lovely icelandic/silk blend that I picked up from Skagit Woollen Works on the right-

Also started a new knitting project while away at Seabeck- Glaciar Vest– but with some mods. Really like the neckline, and the rounded hem that is longer in the back, but instead of the textured stitch in the pattern for the body I’m just working a broken rib. Using some unspun wool which i think is Briggs and Little Country Roving .I un-plied it and am working with just one strand + Knitting for Olive silk mohair.

Also decided to knit it bottom-up rather than top-down (primarily because short rows for neckline and shoulder shaping aren’t great for social knitting). So for now I’m just going round and round alternating knit and ribbed rows. I find ribbing very relaxing. Will see how far the blue mohair gets me up the body. Not sure it I’ll change roving color when the mohair switches or not. Have a couple shades of roving and mohair to play with.

Alrighty folks- take it easy, and have a good week.

Spent some time this morning picking and carding Esther fleece that I dyed last summer-

Felt a bit like visiting with the girl herself, which was kind of bittersweet. So glad I still have some of her fleece to work with. I think that I’m going to use these (and other) colors to build back up my stranded colorwork yarn stash. So, small batches (1-2 oz) in a wide range of colors, at about 80-90 yds/oz.

I just wrapped up a custom chiengora (dog fur) spinning job for some folks I met at the St. Distaff’s Day Spin -in, so it will be fun to change gears and do some color blending.

Will take a bunch of dyed batts and my handcards with me to the Spindrifter’s Retreat next weekend and just play 🙂

Going to close out this post with just a little quiet spinning with Elsa. I thought the light in the wool room looked so pretty on her dark golden finish-

Have a good week, folks-