Tag: Sadie

Frank and Felix Come Clean

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.

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

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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)

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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.

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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)

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

The Problem with February

Is that you can have days like last Sunday

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that really get your hopes up, and then out of nowhere, get hit with this

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Ugh.

I knew winter wasn’t over, but I was kind of hoping we might just stick with our usual sogginess.
Somehow I can handle that better. Snow kind of gets me down.

So I’m distracting myself with a little sampling.
I decided the time was right to blend and spin up some Sadie fluff that I have been holding on to.
I only had a couple of partually filled ziplock sandwich bags, but a little dog hair goes a long way 🙂

I decided to make this a double tribute project, and selected some 2017 Edgar to blend with my Sadie fluff.

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I’ve only spun up the two rolags so far, as a trial run to see how much twist/ply I’ll need.
My resulting sample is pretty fine, and very fuzzy. I about .1 oz, and 13 yds.

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I think I’m going to work up a little swatch in a to-be-determined pattern. I might get as much as 280-300 yards of yarn out of the two batts I carded up, so it will be a small project. Maybe a lacy cowl. Something I can wear often, and feel next to my face.
I like the thought of Edgar and Sadie being close by. A couple of the sweetest four-legged friends a person could have.

I’m also making pretty good progress on my SuperGreen sweater.
With any luck I’ll have the raglan increases done and the sleeves separated from the body before I head back to work on Tuesday, as It’s getting a little crowded on my circular needle!

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Coming Up for Air

August has been quite a month.

Many blog-worthy things have transpired (processing roosters, knitting retreat, eclipse, etc), but I didn’t have a chance to post about them.

And then yesterday, the last day of August 2017, we had to say goodbye to our sweet Sadie pup.
She was an old girl, and had been dealing with multiple health issues over the last few months.
She went out peacefully, surrounded by folks who loved her, and with a cookie in her mouth.

Sadie was about as easy-going and sweet a girl as you could imagine.

We had such good times, hanging out with the chickens
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Rolling around in anything stinky she could find 🙂
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Comandeering the sheep water
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Playfully mixing it up with Wally
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Posing for photos in the yard
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Playing ball
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Lounging on the couch
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And just generally being a sweetie pie
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She is deeply missed.

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Dog Days

It’s been fun getting to know Skye this week
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A little bit about the boy-

he is very photogenic
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enjoys car rides
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and walks in the park
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he also really into tennis balls, pig ears, and getting his silly airplane ears scritched 🙂 (but I failed to capture those moments, sorry)

Meanwhile, out in the pasture, we thought we would cut up and haul off the the fallen tree branch, but it has become the the popular hangout for all species of critters. Go figure-

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And work continues on the sheep shed extension- getting mighty close!

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But Edgar remains unimpressed. 🙂

I have been kind of swatching, in a hat-as-swatch sort of way

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and seem to be on a garter-stitch sort of roll right now.

Next colorway?

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