Tough Old Ladies

We hit -1 around 6:00 a.m.  We've had colder nights over the years, but not with so many elderly sheep, cats, dogs and chickens.  The wind during the day yesterday was brutal, but thankfully it died down in the evening and the 10:00 barn check wasn't bad at all.  There is a fun video over on Instagram, but it will only stay up for 24 hours :-(.

I'd put up heavy plastic on the west side of Easy Breezy and closed their door.  That helped a bunch with the wind and I did several hay feedings throughout the day.  Allie is going to be 15 this spring and is horribly thin.  Even though she assured me she was Just Fine Thank You, I felt better putting a coat on her.  

Does it look familiar?  

 

Remember dear old Miss Ewenice taking such good care of new arrival Renny?  Remember Renny's story?  Well, only newer readers won't remember her story.  

Hard to believe Renny is in the Easy Breezy pen now.  Not that she's exceptionally old and definitely not because she's thin, but because the other side of the barn all slopes downhill and her injured legs are starting to give her some trouble.  EB walks out onto a flat paddock.

When I put her old blanket on Allie I wondered what she would think.  Would she remember it?  She didn't.  She was scared of it.  Or of Allie wearing it.  None of the other sheep cared.  I wonder if they remembered seeing that blanket years ago?  Renny wouldn't have actually seen it, wearing it...

Speaking of blasts from the past, Allie is one of Elizabeth's daughters, from well before the blog.  Her sister Amy is still living as well, over at the original Crazy Sheep Lady's farm and she, too, is wearing a coat this winter.  

All those tough old ladies :-).

Faux Fall - And The Final (For Now) Freebie

Every stinking time I think "Okay.  Whew.  All I have to do is make it three more days and it's going to rain and cool off and summer will finally be over." It teases me with a cool down and then right back into the 80s it goes.  We hit 86 the other day...in the FOURTH WEEK OF OCTOBER!  

It sure looks like fall...

Even sort of like a pretty fall...

This is Baaxter hogging the fan like he does all summer...at 7:30 in the morning...on October 20th. Hershey looked so miserable the night before (how on earth could it be that humid when it's so dry and crispy?!?) that I finally had to do the ole cookie test to make sure he was okay enough that I could go to bed.  If you don't perk up when the cookie box comes out, we call the vet.  Highly scientific...but actually very accurate ;-).

These pictures were taken yesterday morning.  It's cold and raining today.  We'll see if it lasts or if it's just a fake cold down for the big neighborhood Pumpkin (Pumpkin with a P) Party this weekend.   The 10 day is encouraging...but I've seen that before.  

The Punkin's (no extra P) Patch Hug a Sheep/Open Farm Day is next weekend!  I thought about trying to take a new "promo" picture this year, but how on earth can you beat last year?

Actually, that whole post is pretty cute.  I love to go back and revisit the good times.  Even some of the bad times.  The link to the Ewenice and Renny tree had me crying this morning, but it was such a beautiful gift.

You know what - leave a comment on the main blog telling us one/some of your favorite old posts and that will be the third calendar drawing.  Petunia can draw for that one Monday or Tuesday.  And for anyone wanting a calendar but didn't win one, I promise I'll get the Farm Shop updated this weekend!

What Happened With The Basket?

This might be my favorite thing I've ever put together.  I enjoyed the whole thing - the sheep herself, shearing, washing, dyeing, spinning, picking a pattern, finding the perfect basket, winding the weird circular skein that perfectly (by accident) showed off all the colors, writing up a little history of the sheep and the project, arranging everything just so, taking a picture and seeing how the yellow and green match the background... 

I kind of hated to send it off to the Finger Lakes festival, but since I that was the plan, that's what I did.  And I'm glad I did!

I'm obviously thrilled with the ribbon, but I'm equally impressed with the really neat tag with a festival button attached.  I love little details like that.  Very classy.

The class requirements were to spin at least a pound of yarn for a project, include the pattern the yarn is to be used for, knit a swatch to verify your yarn will work for your project and put it in an appropriate basket.  We were also to include information on what kind of fiber, if it was wool, what kind of sheep, the grist of the yarn, how it was prepared...  That was all to fit on an index card.  

I managed to do that, but felt that there was also more to the story that should be shared because it was going to play such a big part throughout the entire project.  Why I would pick that sheep, those colors, the journey so far...

"Renny is very special to me. Not only for who she is, but for what she has taught me. You can live through way more than you think. You can have the courage to do the things that need to be done, even if they are hard or scary. People will help and support you. If you are going to tackle dyeing wool and steeking (cutting) a sweater for the first time, Renny’s your girl!"

I can't wait to start knitting.  Well, after the Kentucky Wool Festival.  And Spinzilla.  Yeah, I signed up for Spinzilla (!).  Baaxter and I joined the Meridian Jacobs Team :-).  If you're going to participate in "A Monster of a Spinning Week", Baaxter's your boy ;-).  

More about that later.

Yarn Along - Renny's Ready!

This post is probably going to seem pretty random and/or weird, but hey, it beats missing another week of Yarn Along and I do have something exciting to share.  Or a couple things.  I had a pretty intense root canal this morning/afternoon, so hang on, it might be a crazy ride!  I apologize up front :-o.

First up, Renny's ready to roll!  My half of her yarn is all spun and I feel like I've got plenty of yardage to not have to dip into the other half of anything :-D.  How did I get it done so quickly?  I ended up having a brilliant idea to enter the Handspinner's Yarn Basket class at the Finger Lakes Fiber Festival later this month.

Not only have I always thought that looked liked fun, but by doing so, I Had A Deadline.  This is never a bad idea with me ;-).  And, not only did I have a deadline, but I obviously wanted to do my very best spinning, so I really concentrated on doing my very best spinning.  Also never a bad idea with me.

I had a great time assembling my basket.  I included half of the spun yarn, the pattern I've picked, my knitted swatch and some info about Renny and Miss Ewenice and how and why this project came to be.  I did take some pictures of it before I put it in the mail.  I'll share those after the festival.

If you've never entered your yarn or a finished item in competition, I can't encourage you enough to do so.  Even if you don't win a ribbon, you are going to get so much valuable feedback from folks who know way more than you do and that's a big win in itself.  Even just taking the time to really do your very best spinning is going to teach you something!

Speaking of fun and interesting competitions at fiber festivals, I would LOVE to enter a Shepherd's Lead class...but I can't find one close by.  Can you imagine taking Maisie all the way to Maryland?!?  I have an idea that maybe we could all do something "online", but oh man, I'm getting way off track here...

Back to Finger Lakes!  This is one of the very nicest fiber festivals I've been to.  I've gone three years now.  Or maybe I've gone two years and this is my third?  Lalala...  Last year I taught a drop spindling class and they asked me back to teach it again and add a "what next" class after it to talk about plying and finishing your yarn.

We had a blast last year and I'm really looking forward to this year.  Just like entering your work in a competition kicks you in the butt, so does having to teach someone how to do something.  I always learn as much as my "students".  I'm sure there are still spots open.  Come join us!  Or at very least, stick your head in the door at the end of the workshop and say hey :-).

Now for something random about spinning yarn you might find interesting.  Or maybe it's about wool.  Or it probably includes characteristics from both spinning and wool.  As I was making test samples before I started spinning for real, I'd spin a bit and then wash the sample to see how it worked, if I needed more twist or less twist or thicker or thinner...  You should always wash your samples to get the truest final results.  Don't ask me how I know this ;-). 

Here are two samples.  Notice that they are different lengths even though they were wound on the same skein winder?  Do you know why?

The long one is still wet and the short one is dry.  As your wool yarn dries, the fiber itself and the crimp or curl in the fiber will relax back into more where it started just off the sheep.  That wet skein is stretched out.  The dry one is stretchy.  And even though this picture really doesn't show it very clearly, it's thicker and rounder and exactly what I wanted :-).  

See I told you this post was going to be goofy.  I'll wrap it up.  Okay, one more really random thing.  As I tried to type wrap, I actually typed warp (a weaving term).  I also tried to shear a book.  Friends should not let friends post blogs on pain meds :-o.  

For my book to share - I've listened to several books lately as I was spinning.  One I really enjoyed was The Language of Hoofbeats by Catherine Ryan Hyde.  Ooh, I didn't realize she also wrote Pay It Forward.  I'm currently listening to another No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency story.  Always fun :-).

Joining in with Ginny...

Yarn Along - A Sheep Of A Different Color

You should probably better sit down.  I know I did several times ;-).

Sheepmom was here over the weekend.  Julie, too!  She didn't fill her truck with sheep this time, but she did fill it with pots, pans, miscellaneous supplies and...jars of wool dye.  Yeah, I know.  I told you to sit down ;-).  Somehow I got talked into adding a little bright color to my life.

I have a couple of white fleeces left from this year and surprisingly, Renny's fleece is still here.  I always hate to see her (or any of them, honestly) go each year (but I can't spin them all) and took this as a sign that this was my year.  I decided we would dye part of her fleece.  

I want to try a cardigan with steeking, or cutting your knitting to add a button band.  Yes, that's scary for sure, but oh so brave Renny will be perfect!  I always check Kate Davies patterns first, especially for colorwork, and something like this is at the front so far.  I'm envisioning a light gray (natural) body and colorful yoke.

I picked colors that I liked but also meant something to Renny's story.  Green for her coats she used to wear, rose for her best friend Miss Ewenice.  The yellow was just to add a bright pop if needed and blue as a possible background color.  Let's see how it turned out! 

We sorted out the darkest of the grays for the darkest color, hunter green (8 oz).  The next darkest went for a medium blue (12 oz) somewhere between the two bottles set out.  The lightest gray went for the bright yellow (6 oz).  A darker gray would have made it look pretty dull and dark I think.  The remaining was divided between light green (8 oz) and rose (12 oz).  This is about 1/3 of her total fleece.  The rest was left natural.

Robin uses Jacquard dyes and I was very happy with them as well.  After we had all the fleece divided, we filled a couple stainless steel pans, heated the water to 160 degrees, carefully added a small amount of dye, a goodly amount of vinegar and then the fleece.

Using insulated gloves, we slowly pushed the wool into the dye pot and then put the pot into the oven, set at 200 degrees.  I do realize that technically we should not have been doing this in the kitchen, but we did almost everything outside except the oven...but everyone knows how much little that oven gets used for food around here anyway ;-).

We monitored the pots carefully, watching to make sure the colors were looking the way we wanted and also if the dye had "exhausted" or was completely absorbed so the water remaining was clear.  

Some things we did to tweak the colors was to add some yellow to the greens to keep them from looking too blue.  We also ended up adding some black to the pot of dark green to make sure it was dark enough.  I didn't have to breathe into a paper bag even once and I have to admit it was even pretty fun ;-).

Since we only had a few pots, we transferred the finished dye pots to roasting pans to cool so we could start the next color.  It looks like I could make Kate a new rope toy with these two pans. Speaking of dogs, Kate and Weaslie spent the afternoon in the house so they wouldn't get into anything dangerous.  Betsy spent the entire day sleeping in various rotating positions under the same table so was therefore in no danger ;-).

Here are the colors we used.

And here's how they turned out.  I think we nailed them!

Interestingly, each lock took up the colors differently.  I noticed it first with the rose and when I pointed it out to Robin she explained that sometimes the tips will take up more than the cut end.  The blue color apparently didn't get that memo as it's the reverse.  I'm sure there's a scientific reason for that.  Anyone?

And here she is!

I think this is going to be fun.  I can't wait for it to dry (surely by today, although with all this rain, nothing's really drying :-o).  Obviously there is way more here than I need to make a sweater, so I hope I have it planned out so I can divide everything in half and maybe sell the second half to someone else who'd like so spin and knit a Renny project.  

On the reading front, I'm listening to Go Set A Watchman, the sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.  I just started it yesterday (the release day) so am only a few chapters in. I have a feeling even if it's awful, we'll all enjoy it regardless.

Joining in with Ginny...

Portal Pics

I purposely took the boat/truck portal picture, but when I downloaded the other shots, I realized I had several portals :-).

Liddy's doing very well.  She's got Blossom and Lila with her.  Blossom is pictured here.  Lila had already headed in.  

I'm toying with adding Maisie to the mix today.  Liddy needs to get used to dealing with multiple sheep and while Maisie will probably punch on her some (the little darling ;-), she doesn't have horns and might be more apt to "play" a little.  The older aunties are pretty dull I'm afraid...which is also why they make great aunties.  Miss Ewenice would be proud :-).

Look at that smushy mouth sleeping on his foot.  Sweet Daniel :-).

Poor Kate has had a rough couple of weeks.  Between the never ending thunder storms and then days upon days of fireworks (don't get me started!) she's worn out.  On an interesting note, when Liddy is with her, she's much less stressed.  Or maybe she's as stressed, but if Liddy lays down, Kate does too and that makes us all feel better.

Del Boca Vista Summer Annex.  The storms and cloud cover kept things cooler last week, but now the sun is back out and Jester is really struggling.  He's in pretty good shape in the cool, breezy aisleway, but he sure complains about having to move in here every morning.  Of course, that's after he's complained about being outside first ;-).  Those opinionated Jacobs!

Adventures In Handspinning

A week or so ago I teased you with a "guess who this is" basket of half spun yarn.  While I'm chomping at the bit to spin Maisie's yarn, I'm making myself hold off as long as possible because I'm sure I'm going to want to cast on as soon as it's done and I really, really, really want to knit her for the 2015 Iknitarod (not that far away!).  Here's another clue.

Hmmm - looks like someone curly ;-).

I love how the character of the sheep shines through into the yarn.  Maisie's yarn probably won't look significantly different between spinning and washing to set the twist, but as soon as some hot water hits a curly fleece, boing!

Here it is before washing.

A closer look. 

800 yards of 32 wraps per inch yarn.  Perfect for a special lace project.

It didn't start out "perfect".  And while I've yet to spin a perfect yarn, it needed to be a bit more perfect than it was.  I must have fallen asleep halfway through plying and a huge chunk was waaay under-plied.  While it didn't fall apart, it wasn't "right", so I stewed on how to fix it.  Almost anything with yarn is fixable, especially if you've got the right tools.

You can live without a good skein winder.  You can wrap yarn around other things like a big box or board to skein it.  You can get your sweetie to hold the skein while you unwrap it to wind a yarn ball.  You can try setting your skein down on the floor board during a long car trip to wind your yarn ball.  Actually, don't try that!  Don't ask me why I know ;-).

What I really should have said above is you can live without a skein winder.  What is hard to live without is a GOOD skein winder.  Don't ask me how I know that as well.  I now have a good skein winder.  It's an Andy Nistock hand crafted winder/swift.  With a counter.  That works exceptionally well...as long as you remember to write. down. the. number.  Don't ask me how I know that either.

397 times around.

I had the arms set out to the 2 yard mark.  Actually, I like to set them a hair past the mark just to give myself a little extra padding, especially if the yarn is super stretchy.  This yarn isn't, but still.  So, 397 x 2 = 794 yards (or just under 800 yards in crazysheeplady maths ;-).

Next I take a scrap piece of yarn and tie off each stretch between the arms with a loose figure eight to help secure the yarn before washing.  Then, loosen one of the adjustable arms and off comes a perfectly wound and counted skein.  

Here's where the not so perfect part comes in:

Because part of my yarn was under-plied and I wanted to fix that, I stopped after the winding it from the bobbin onto the skein winder part.  I then took the loose end of the yarn, hooked back onto my bobbin and proceeded to slowly unwind the skein back onto the bobbin, adding a bit more twist in the spots that needed it.  

I could only do that because the winder is so free spinning and smooth. You can tension it or completely un-tension it with the knob in the center.  And interestingly, my first wind off after plying was 398 times, so I added enough new twist to shorten the overall length by 2 yards.  I think this yarn is much better. Still not perfect, but very pretty and special and ready to knit.

It's washed and drying on the porch.  It will then go back on the skein winder/swift and lickety split I'll have a ready to knit center pull ball of yarn.

Now to pick my pattern...

.   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .

Looks like Robin and I are trading blog posts today!  I'd salvaged enough of Burrnie's first awful shearing to make her a hat.  She posted pictures (that I forgot to take :-o) on her blog today.  Thanks, Robin :-D.

Fiber In The Flower Garden

I was setting up a "photo shoot" and couldn't pass up a few more flower photos.  Guess who this is.

The dahlias are blooming now.

This one looking back towards the mighty purple loosestrife.

More prisoner plants.  Everything's behind bars around here.  The chickens love these poor blanket flowers. Or at least the dirt they're planted in.  Here's a fun blast from the past :-D. 

2014 Tour De Fleece Wrap Up

The challenge I set for myself, besides spin every day of the Tour de France/Fleece was to spin up all sorts of loose bits of roving I had squirreled away here, there and everywhere.  In the end I was successful with my daily spinning goal and ended up with 32 oz and 1800 yards of yarn.  It was fun to hang out with a variety of some of my favorite sheep.

These two browns - the red brown and pale brown in the center are both from Petunia.  The dark was her lamb fleece and the light from last year.

I especially enjoyed spinning this skein of Peabody, spun long draw.  

Here are three different white sheep.  Peabody in the middle, a Perendale/Cheviot cross on the right and I can't remember who that is on the left.  Three different whites.  Isn't that interesting?

Jester, always a fun spin, and Beanie Baby, also very nice.

And some tiny samples of some lace weight from Miss Ewenice.  The large skein was my first attempt - too thick.  The second and third skeins are in the ball park.  Sampling is important ;-).

Some other sheep I spun were Henrietta, Popcorn PeePee Pants, Elizabeth, some mixed Jacob, a Tunis sample, Shetland sample, California Red cross, hmmm who else...  Goal for next year - better record keeping!  Or maybe I shouldn't wait that long ;-).

If you participated with the Tour de Fleece and completed your challenge but weren't signed in on Ravelry, drop me an email and let me know you would like to be included in the prize drawings :-).

Now to figure out what I want to make with all that yarn!