To Light And Heat The Earth

And make us all laugh.



What else could Sunshine dress up as for Halloween than the Jimmy Dean commercial's sunshine character. I thought it was a great idea. Sunshine said she was game. The rest of the Jacobs? Well, let's just say they didn't stick around for breakfast.





"Hey, why's everyone running away?"



"Well, gosh. I guess I'll just eat all of Stella's treats by myself."



Ewen McTeagle must have remembered trick or treating last year.



Iris will do anything for a Nilla Wafer.

"What do you mean the sheep are all running into the barn?"

I wished I'd had the video camera when the sheep were running away from cute little Sunshine. Of course, I was laughing so hard that I wouldn't have been able to capture it anyway. Hope everyone is having some fun today.

Happy Halloween!

Trinity Vest

I finally finished the Trinity Vest from A Fine Fleece.





This was my cable project and, as always, I learned more than just how to do cables. I learned how to make button holes, pick up stitches for edging around the arm holes, how to add a crocheted edging to firm up the back neckline... And, it fits! And it's pretty. And it's made from yarn I spun for the Tour de Fleece, graciously provided by two of my favorite sheep, Boudreaux the Biter and Buddy.

I have to finish my socks that I've been working on since summer (!) and then I'm jumping into a new sweater for myself - a remake of the special Punkin' sweater, but that's a whole 'nother story.

Boo House Rock

Remember Boo's shanty town shack from last year? Since that actually worked quite well, Saint Tim decided to build him a real house this year...and not a minute too soon. Here is where we found him sleeping a couple evenings ago.



Even with Sunshine's wash towels as a pillow, a wooden pallet cannot be very comfortable.



The towel "blanket" only helps a little.



Here is where Boo's sleeping tonight.



Much better!

Old Married Couple?

My last needle felted sheep were headed out as a wedding topper. These two have something to do with a play.



And Saint Tim thinks our sheep don't "do" anything ;-)

Rhinebeck Recap - Part 2

Doesn't this look fun?



The Sheep to Shawl contest had five teams.

There was the "Martha Stewart" team. I hope you can click to make that picture big enough to read their description.



The "witches" team.



The "red" team with a young girl weaving their shawl. I don't know how old she is, but we are guessing between 10 and 12.



The "formal wear" team.



And I can't decide how to peg this team. These have all been my names, by the way, not the real names. I was having so much fun watching them that I didn't think to take notes and I would love to know who won!

I'll leave you with this sad picture.



Just to be silly, the year we went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival I had just collected this cute big sheepy, so I took her with me. She has since travelled to every fiber festival I've attended. Doesn't she look sad staring out the back window as we drove away from Rhinebeck? I knew exactly how she felt.

Rhinebeck Recap - Part 1

...also known as Christmas comes early for thecrazysheeplady.

We spent this past weekend in Rhinebeck, NY, for the NY Sheep and Wool Festival. This is my favorite weekend of the whole year!



This year was chilly - more of what I'd expect for October in the Hudson River Valley - but beautiful. The company was excellent and I was so excited to run into some people I knew during my lunch break on Saturday (and much warmer for it, thanks to a baked potato reconnaissance run by Julie!).

I took a really good spinning workshop with Spinning Spider Jenny on Saturday and wished it could have lasted at least a week. She's a great teacher and fun to boot! Sunday was shopping day :-).

Here are a couple "loot" pictures and a quick rundown. The fleece is Cormo. The tiny bag of musk ox cost almost as much as the big fleece :-O. The buttons are a pewter sheep design picked out especially for the Trinity vest. The knitting needles are Lantern Moon. The soaps and beeswax candle have sheep on them. Of course. The stitch markers are all different sheep, spinning and knitting designs. The note card of the lamb chewing on momma's ear was too precious to pass up. And everywhere I wore the Gita Maria pin on Sunday people asked, "Ooh, is that Gita Maria?" I felt like I'd been shopping at Tiffany's!







Possibly the real highlight of a trip somewhere like the NY Sheep and Wool Festival is looking at all the contest classes - fleeces, spinning, finished items, Sheep to Shawl... Saint Tim patiently waited while I looked at and read judges evaluations for I don't know how long.



I knew though that something really special was coming when he quietly said, "Hey, you've got to see this." And trust me, this photo does not even come close to doing justice to the real thing.



It literally took my breath away and I actually blinked back tears. I was afraid to touch it to see the artist's name..., but it looked like it had won "Best of Show" so hopefully I can find it on their website and give credit where so much credit is due.

You can't really see all of Rhinebeck in one weekend and you sure shouldn't try to recap the entire weekend in one post, so check back later for the Rhinebeck Recap - Part 2 - Sheep to Shawl!

It Takes A Special Friend

We finally got some rain today. And it turned chilly. I'd like to complain about a cold rain when we sure could have used some warm rains for the last several months, but I'm not going to complain about any rain at this point.

Iris and Weaslie elected to come inside for awhile, but Boo seems to prefer to be outside. Especially if he gets to choose exactly which dog bed he wants.



Now this looks like a sweet picture of Boo and his friend Comby napping on the porch, but what you can't really see (as I took this picture through the screen door) is that Boo is soaking wet.

How many of us have friends that would still snuggle up to us if we were a wet, smelly dog?