Category: Blog

It’s funny how mostly people speak of “fruits of our labors”, with fruits always being the result.

I suspect that if more folks had fruit trees they would more commonly say “labors of our fruits”.

This time of year when the trees are are finishing their work, it’s time for us to get down to the business of laboring over the fruit harvest. But we’re happy to have it!

Apples have started to drop, so I picked some today. But then I ran out of bins and boxes to put them in.

Pears have been picked over the last week, and have reached peak ripeness, after which they don’t last long. The Man has been busy drying

and also making Spicy Pear Butter

Also making progress on the Shepherd’s new vest.

Harvested a little fall fleece from Fiona the other day- just around the neck and shoulders. I’m excited to see that her fleece appears to be improving with age (that seems to be a theme with the two Icelandic girls) but it wasn’t as long as I expected (more of the bulk turned out to be the girl herself!).

More floof, less scritch. Nice.

Featuring a couple special requests today- one completed, and the other still underway.

Completed- one skein of dog 50/50 fur & wool blend yarn.

Was pretty pleased with how it turned out- very light and springy thanks to the Jacob wool in the mix. And check out the fuzz factor on the swatch!

and the in-progress is The Shepherd’s next vest-

7 inches in, and one full cable panel repeat down. Really like how it’s shaping up!

Tentative goal is to have it done by early October. It’s not a quick knit, with the front and back cabling, but feel like I’m getting into a rhythm now, so hopefully it will flow along at a reasonable pace.

Have a great week everyone- and if you’re in the area, hope to see you at the Alger Market Fun(d) Raiser next Saturday (yes, it’s usually a Sunday Market, but this event is Saturday instead)!

This week I got down to business with the vest project.

I’m about 5 inches in now, and getting comfortable with the twisted stitch pattern. It’s a nice a symmetrical, repeating pattern, and doesn’t require a cable needle. win win win. 🙂 Feels really good to have that underway.

Also playing around with making garland from locks of wool-

It’s kind of fun. Just stripping out narrow locks and crocheting them together into a continuous line. Seems pretty stable so far, but if necessary I figure I can run some yarn through it afterwards.

Also made some more felt this weekend of Felix fleece from a few years ago that wasn’t a particularly good candidate for spinning. Not sure if I’ll have a chance to make any more puppets this season, but nice to have a stash of felt ready to play with.

I learned a few things this year that has really helped make my wet felting process more manageable (and less exhausting)- 1. using a piece of chiffon (or other suitable fabric or netting) to hold fibers in place during wetting and initial agitation and rolling, and 2. a new rolling method that has really saved my back.

Sharing this video here in case it’s of help to anyone else- the rolling method starts at about 3 minutes in

Finally, here is a cool random thing I found out in the yard yesterday evening-

A complete, intact snakeskin, about 2 feet long, including the head! Wild, eh?

Somewhere on our property is a snake sporting a fresh new outfit 🙂

Done and done!

Sweater is officially wrapped up, ends woven in and all. Woot! Elizabeth Zimmerman is a genius. Her seamless saddle should really save the day on this one.

And I’ve officially made a start on The Shepherd’s next vest (fleece from Olivia) in the form of a swatch. Its looking like a size 5 needle will work nicely.

Will be fun working traveling stitches after the recent acres of stockinette.

Little bitta knit, little bitta purl, little bitta twist.