Category: Blog

When last I reported on the mystery fleece, it was relaxing in a cool bath. In the intervening time, it has continued to soak, with daily changes of bath water.

And the water, which I’m calling Fleece Tea, has been a special treat for the roses in this hot and dry weather. I’m crediting the tea with this week’s arrangement of late summer blooms

I’ve been working through washing it in batches, and am almost through. Second to last bunch drying now in the hoophouse

Underneath the dirt and grease, it’s really a quite nice bunch of wool. Shades of gray, fluffy and crimpy. about 3-4 inch staple. I couldn’t help but spin some up already (i do love sampling) and that led to knitting up simple comfy cap.

It’s quite cushy and fuzzy. I kind of love it.

Anyway, in case I want to make another, project notes to self: singles spun on Moto (speed setting 3), yarn chained while knitting to create a three strand thickness, 84 stitches, on size 6 needle. Crown shaping, 6 section spiral decrease every other round first 6 times, then every round until 6 stitches remain. Was really pleased with the look of the spiral- here’s another shot for posterity

Also happy to report that I have made some significant progress on The Shepherd’s Vest!

In the home stretch now- just neck and armhole trim to go! Nice to see it coming together-

And I’ll close it out this week with some garden gems

The heat-lovers have really been appreciating our weather lately. Think we’ve got rain in the forecast for tomorrow though. 🙂

Today a fellow vendor at the Alger Sunday Market offered me a mystery fleece.

Been a while since I’ve taken in a stray, but you know me- always willing to give fleece a chance 🙂

It came to me straight off the sheep, and stuffed in a black plastic garbage bag.

Was really heavy, so I figured it might either be damp, or have a lot of dung tags. But after a bit of skirting and sorting, there was still a whole lot of it. A mountain of greasy fleece.

Didn’t weigh it, but I’m thinking 8-10 pounds? Lots of dirt and grease in there.

But it looks quite promising. Nice staple length, shades of gray, and a Romney-ish crimp

Seemed like it might be a little damp, so didn’t want to delay in getting it cleaned up.

For now the newcomer is relaxing in a cool bath.

Hopefully will have a chance to hot wash a batch tomorrow. I do love to sample new fiber.

Was nice to see so many folks come out for the market today despite the rain.

And thank goodness there was interest in eggs- the girls are laying over a dozen a day right now!

Have a good week everyone 🙂

I participated in three events this week

Freestyle vest knitting

Felt puppet prelims

And the batt carding compulsories

And what did I win? Garlic! – In addition to everything else that is coming out of the garden right now 🙂

So much good stuff.

Oh- and just in case you missed this: Olympian Knitting in the stands at diving final. Make sure you scroll down to see his cool knitted medal cozy.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the market today in Alger. And special thanks to those of you who took home some of cucumbers. The cukes are coming on lots faster than we can eat them!

Back home in the hoophouse this evening I picked some little tomatoes- honeycomb hybrid are in full swing, with just the smallest of the Principe Borghese starting to ripen.

And Brad’s Atomic Grape are starting to show their outrageous colors

A couple of rows over, Petite Gris de Renne melons are chillaxing in their newly rigged up melon hammocks

So much good stuff coming out of the garden right now.

The only thing that really didn’t work out that well is the potatoes in feed sacks. Those guys started to die back in the last few weeks so I emptied them out and terminated the experiment. Got some taters, but not nearly the production I’d hoped for.

You win some, you lose some.