Weekend Wrap Up

Mostly what I got accomplished this past week was taking care of animals. Other than a frost bit chicken comb, so far, so good. We apparently made the national news for our all time record low of 23 below zero, actual temperature. It was sunny and no wind that morning, so I didn't have a clue. 

I did get my Peerie Flooers hat finished.  Twice.  The first time I pulled it on and had flashbacks to the Mia hat.  This was an easy fix though and I just ripped back to an earlier flower pattern and re-knit the top half.  I love this hat :-).

Some more good news, the first shipment of Mug Shot mugs came the other day and they look great! I'm really happy with them - whew!  I tried to take a picture with my iPhone this a.m., but it looked terrible so I'll take some better ones later today.  

More good news, for Sandy.  She was the Random.org winner of the snowy felted sheep.  Shoot me an email with your address and I'll get her shipped out as soon as possible.

And finally, if you are needing a lamb fix, go check out Shepherd Life.  You'll recognize Sarah from some of the Hug a Sheep Day parties.  

Here are some of my favorite shots from the week:

Daniel

This might be a new favorite of Hank.

The little princess ;-).  Oh, I spun up another ounce or so of her yarn.  Probably won't need it, but better safe than sorry.

Murphy.  This might have been the -23 morning.  If not, it was the -14 morning the day before.  They are all running together at this point.

Sound asleep in the sun.  Peaceful.  The way sheep should be ;-).

How did your week wrap up?

Weekend Wrap Up

Technically it's still the weekend...for a few more minutes.  I'm really trying to keep myself "accountable" each week, so here's a quick post.  It was a bit of a crazy week.

The Winter Wool Workshop is going to be a blast.  We've got four really neat people coming in from four different states.  Robin is sending THREE pretty fleeces for us to work with and Baaxter is looking forward to being the bottle lamb representative because he knows Maisie will just be a Big Fat Brat...and he's probably right.

Speaking of Maisie, her yarn is finished.  I snapped this last night after I plied the last skein.  I was "okay" with it, but still not super happy.  I washed it today and you all can start throwing rotten tomatoes at me.  That yarn is Maisie through and through.

Here's the little darlin' now ;-).  I took some more nice sheep shots on Friday.  Would you rather see sheep or Maisie's finished yarn next?

I'll end with a teefers pic of sweet little Baby B trimming a tree that's growing too close to the fence. Always helpful.  I'm looking forward to spinning his wool this summer ;-).

So how did your week wrap up?

Weekend Wrap Up

The week's end wrap ups are working well for me! Doesn't hurt that it's winter of course, but there were actually several "spring" days this week, but only in temp, not in grass/weeks growing...  I have determined my year end goal for 2015, but now that I'm typing this out, I'm realizing that my more immediate goal is going to be to keep things moving in the "pipeline" once spring starts.  That's a pretty tough challenge.

Mini bows for mini wool wreaths.

I am quite happy with these mini wreaths and if I can figure out a way to incorporate some of their different construction ideas into the large size wreaths, everyone wins.  The large wreaths are so beautiful, but they are hand killers.  

I think these are cute.  And look at all the different colors!

That's because I got four fleeces washed during the "spring break".  Light and medium gray, black and white.  

Kate supervised...and I think was a bit disturbed by the whole process.  She came from a Katahdin farm, so the whole wool aspect of sheep is new to her.  You don't have to shear Katahdins and you sure don't put them in a washing machine ;-).

Getting close on the Mug Shot mug design.

And then look what happened!

So in the spirit of the Iknitarod, I pulled Maisie down out of the loft and started spinning :-).  Since she has figured so prominently in the last two years of the Iknitarod, I'm planning on knitting a Maisie sweater this year.  Hopefully that will keep her out of trouble...at least for two weeks!

Petunia and I smile at big fat snow flakes :-D.  I may have taken some a lot of snow pictures last night and this morning.

How did your week wrap up?

Weekend Wrap Up

It was a mix of work and play although at some points the "play" was more like "work".

I'd gifted myself the yarn to make the American Snowflake scarf for my birthday (August).  It's been sitting patiently and politely on top of the Baby Mac loom all fall (and half the winter). 

I was excited to finally get caught up enough to get started.  The yarn was a beautiful merino/silk blend.   I wove a small sample, liked what I saw, the pattern is stunning...what could go wrong.  By the way, this photo shows the "cross" I thought for sure I'd shown in a previous warp winding post, but now I can't find it.  This is how you keep all the threads straight as you start threading up your loom. More on that later.

The yarn was a bit "sticky" (probably from the silk) and "stretchy" (probably from the wool), I was using a less than straightforward sleying pattern and all the threads were doubled up already to better match the thickness I needed (due to my yarn substitution) and I had a little trouble getting my warp on straight, but in the end I felt like it was one of my better winding jobs.  It was...mostly.

There was much tea, kept nicely warm sitting on the stove :-).

Speaking of mugs, Tim and I are working on the "mug shot" mug design.  I think I've found a good way to get them printed and I've tried designs with four or five full mug shots, but it wasn't as colorful as I wanted.  I think the idea of using lots of smaller pictures is cute, but I've got to figure out how to handle Baaxter and Maisie peeking over their ID signs on the original shots.  It will come together.  I just need another week :-).

After a couple false starts and re-adjustments, weaving was finally underway.

I love to watch cloth start to build up.

It is very pretty and I should stop being so crabby.

The fringe is twisted by hooking a group of threads onto the two clips, using the cranking bottom to twist each side separately, tie them together at the bottom and let them loose and the energy stored from the individual twists spins the two together.  Okay, enough of all this.  Pictures of the finished scarf to come on Wednesday.

A little more Hershey spinning.

This is how I handle stopping in mid-spin.  You can use a clothespin or something and anchor the yarn to your wheel, but I frequently can't keep track of that so I just wrap the loose end once or twice around one of the guide hooks and let it hang.  

Next up on the needles, a Christmas present from my parents.  Hopefully it won't take until my birthday...  It's a Peerie Flooers hat from Kate Davies Designs.  Her patterns are fabulous and fun and I'm excited to use the Jamieson and Smith yarn that is so popular.  While the kit yarn is far from scratchy, it definitely feels more like I think cozy, squishy wool should feel.  

Okay, that's the last mean thing I'm going to say about that beautiful scarf ;-).  

Weekend Wrap Up

New goal for 2015 - every weekend I'm going to post a week's end report from the Wool House.  If I don't post a week's end report...well, I'm just going to.  I have a great work space and I'm always disappointed by how much I don't utilize it.  That's just ridiculous.  

Look for lots of boring pictures of spinning, knitting, weaving, felting, painting...and in turn, there should be all sorts of projects getting finished, felted sheep being made, wool wreaths, some painted floor cloths...  The possibilities are endless...if I just apply myself!

So, to start of this week's report, I actually did some spinning on Roc Day.  This is Hershey's lamb fleece.  Remember when he was still Hershey chocolate brown?  When he slept on my lap so he didn't have to grow up and go be a breeding ram at a big farm without laps to sleep on and lots of cookies?  This is the fleece that sat on my lap :-).

I started spinning to see what the yarn felt like it wanted to be.  The result seemed completely reasonable so I pulled off a bit to make my sample card.  I make a sample card so that I can try to spin a consistent yarn from beginning to end, even if it takes me several weeks to get through that big bag of roving.

Here I have my sample card with a single ply, a double ply and a short sample skein to wash and test knit to make sure I really am happy with the yarn.

All yarn is is fiber with some twist.  Simple as that.  Seriously, it really is that simple at its basic form...but there are books and books of "more to it than that" ;-).  I'm not going to even try to say more.  I think it's neat to see it change from one form to the other, just through my hands and a spinning wheel.

What I can show you is how I use my sample card to try and match my spinning from start to finish. Ideally the yarn I spin each day should match up to the single I have stored on my sample card, from the thickness to the amount of twist per inch.  I lay the freshly spun yarn up next to the original samples.  So far, so good.

I'm also working on a weaving project.  This is a test sample for a scarf from the May/June issue of Handwoven.  It's a 6 harness pattern of "American Snowflakes".  I substituted one of the yarns the pattern called for so here I'm making sure I've got the correct sett for the warp (white - up and down) yarn and that I'm weaving the correct picks per inch (light gray - back and forth) as well.  It's not a very large sample, but that was the extra yarn I had available.  I think it's telling me what I need to know.

The weaving sheep don't fit on the Baby Mac as well as they do on the Big Mac, but they're keeping a good eye on my threading and weaving pattern just the same ;-).

Tilly and Kate came and went throughout the week, depending on the weather.  On warmer days they found lots to keep them busy outside.

On cold days, they stayed inside with me.

The sun came out for about 4 minutes one afternoon.

And I "finished" a hat...that needs its own blog post.  As with most of my projects, "I learned a lot". At least I ended up with a warm hat for these last few days.  I've appreciated that for sure!

So, that's a wrap up from the week.  I'm happy that I have something to report.  Hopefully as the year goes on, I'll have more and more.  If you'd like to join along and report in with a weekly wrap up yourself, please do so!  Just leave a comment below and if you have a blog or website, share that as well and we can all encourage each other :-D.