Category: Blog

Classic Oak is assembled (not that you can tell that from the picture, but I swear it’s true!)

Now all that remains is the button band/collar.
I’ve never done a button band before, and the buttonhole technique/size was worrying me a bit-
so I’d been procrastinating all week.

Tonight, after much gauge measuring and button size contemplation, I decided to go for it.

All the stitches are picked up (all those little tan yarn bits are markers for stitch spacing).
And after all my fussing and cogitating about buttonhole techniques, I’ve decided to just do the darn thing exactly according to the instructions and buy buttons to fit after it’s done.

Why do I find it so hard to trust patterns?

Baby Bear, finished.

Jesh’s amazing and clever vertical Buttonhole, discovered.

Frank, fresh from the wash.

And tamed by the carder.

Peg Loom, built by The Man!

Very anxious to give it a go- just ran out of time this weekend (had to get the baby bear done).
How did I never know about these before now?

Saturday I participated in the 1st annual Whatcom SkillShare and Barter Faire

As you might guess, my SkillShare was spinning. I brought a whole bunch of wool, carders, two wheels, and some yarn and small items to barter with if the opportunity arose.

It was a good time. I really enjoyed talking to people about wool and spinning, and folks seemed to appreciate having a chance to get behind the wheel and see what they could do.

There were also people demonstrating and instructing people on drop spindle and supported spindle spinning. So we had a whole array of options for the wool-curious to check out.

And I actually did my first ever bit of bartering! I brought home a reversible little project bag, some grapefruit scented hand cream, facial toner, and herbal soap. Mmmmm. good smellin’ stuff 🙂

Then today, much to my amazement, my stupid rope trick (see Outsmarting the Smarty Sheeps worked again! So I had the chance to spend some quality time with Frank and get the last of this Fall’s shearing done.

Here is Frankie-boy mid-shear

Oh my gosh! He actually is white under all that messy wool!

So that was cool. All the boys are fresh and sporty-lookin’.

And sewing. Lets not forget about the sewing.

Really pleased with how this is going so far.

Hope that I didn’t just jinx myself by writing that 😉

Still have most of the side and under-sleeve seams to go, but
The sleeves are in! The sleeves are in!

Can you tell how excited I am?

How, you may ask, do you get four eggs in one day when you only have 3 chickens?

You bring home more chickens!

We brought 5 new hens home Saturday afternoon. 3 rhode island reds and 2 ameraucanas.

Things are a little tense right now between the old and new chicken tribes.
There have been a couple of confrontations, but so far no injuries, so I’m hopeful that with a little time things will settle out. (fingers crossed)

On the sheep front, I finally got Edgar and Chone tidied up-

And got a start on Felix, who is now a partially white sheep again!

He was actually being pretty cooperative and I probably could have finished his haircut Saturday, but we had to break off to go and collect the new chickens. Was nice to get a little quality time with Felix, because he’s kind of a shy guy. And such a sweet soft fleece!

In knitting news, Classic Oak cardigan is blocking now, and I hope to start assembling sometime this week.

So far, so good!