Spring Shearing

Our favorite shearer, Bill Haudenschield, was in town for a few days last week (with his nephew Dustin :-) so we decided to go ahead and shear a week or so early this year.  It was a beautiful day, the company was good, the sheep all behaved (mostly ;-) and the fleeces look good.  Here are some of my favorite pictures.

Lila

Rebecca Boone

Woody

Muffin

Biscuit...all those pretty curls :'-(.

The video.

Renny

Daniel Note Liddy in the background.  Just after I took this picture, she stuck her head through the gate and grabbed a packet of french fries!

Murphy

Clover Belly

Levi

Levi

Chocula

The Little Darlin'...

...who actually behaved quite well this year!
This is the extended version of the video I posted the other day.  I just love these!

You'll notice a few sheep didn't get shorn.  They are the oldies who don't have enough fat on them (Allie, Annabelly, Billy Belly and Mrs. Pepperpot) for me to feel comfortable taking away their woolly jumpers before we are certain the cold is over for the year.  

After a couple weeks of 70s and 80s, we have now, of course, turned a bit colder, but with the barn shut up when it's windy and plenty of hay in front of them, everyone is doing okay.  The warm sunshine has been appreciated though for sure.  And look at that green grass and bright blue sky!  It matches my hat :-D.

And here's a new puzzle!  Enjoy :-).

The 2018 Iknitarod Race Prep

After seeing the iPhone compilation of pictures and videos from knitting on the Baaxter Carbeth, 20 knew he'd lost his new sweater and that we were going to re-knit it.

I hadn't done a cast off or woven in any of the loose ends, so it was physically easy to pull the needles out and start frogging (rip it rip it).  Mentally...well, a. it wasn't right and I wasn't happy with it and b. Stella (the queen of rip it back and make it right) came down to help and support.  It wasn't so bad ;-).

We used my handy Nistock skein winder to...wind it into skeins.

One sleeve.

The body.  I'd spit splices all the original skeins together so we decided to let it wind off as one biiiig skein :-o.

We used steam to relax all the knitted curls...without setting Stella's hand on fire, but Be Careful with steam!

Back to normal.  Wool yarn is fun :-).

Just for curiosity I decided to hold out one sleeve to wet block just in case I needed to know something important about how the knitting would behave.  I don't usually wet block my swatches...and should.  

We took measurements, let it soak for 20 minutes, set it out on a towel, let it dry completely, remeasured, learned that Baaxter's wool yarn was going to respond the way wool does almost every time, steamed out the last of the curls and wound everything from skeins into balls.

It doesn't look like a sweater's worth of yarn there, but it is.  1700 yards total, but held double to knit a second attempt, smaller Carbeth sweater.

20 was okay with getting his Ford sweater back, but asked if he could participate more this year so he will be going along as my Iknitarider :-).  The Carbear will be the knitting bag mascot :-).

The Baaxter logo from a couple years ago has been updated to include 20 and reflect Baaxter's more, um, mature color ;-).

The Iditarod's Ceremonial Start is underway, so the Iknitarod "mushers" are eligible to cast on, so I'm going to go get busy!  Hope you enjoy following along :-).

Green

This has got to be the earliest I've ever used the "I hate summer" label :'-(  

At least Buddy's happy.  

Sigh...

"When I grow up..."

"...am I going to be a sweater?"

We're counting on it...but it would be nice if you'd try to stay a bit tidier :-o.

The 2018 sweater making preparation is not far off.  The bigger flocks getting ready for lambing are shearing now.  We won't be far behind, especially if this crazy weather holds up.  It won't though and the surest way to get it to cool back down will be to shear the sheep...

Speaking of sweaters, I've decided to take the Carbeth back from 20 and re-knit it for the Iknitarod, which starts this Saturday.  Wait a minute.  This if probably not making any sense to anyone who isn't following on Instagram, now that I think about it.  Let's back track...

I finished Baaxter's Carbeth.  I was between sizes and went up instead of down...and should have gone down.  Not only that, I wasn't happy with my decrease stitches (what shapes the sweater and makes that point in the top center).  

Not only was the right side not as even as it should have been, but I also had some mild puckering on both sides, front and back.  Both of these problems could have been fixed with an aggressive blocking...which would have made the sweater even bigger.

So my first thought was to trade it to 20 (who looks great in it) in exchange for the Ford sweater that I'd like to have back ;-).  Then I saw that cute video of the afternoon I knit out in the field and got all sentimental about it and now I'm going to re-knit it for myself during the Iknitarod.  Sorry, 20.

Before I do that though I wanted to practice those stupid decreases, so I decided to knit a teddy bear sized sweater...which is oddly how my last winter Olympics challenge ended, now that I think about it...and here's a link to that post.  Oh wow, I'd forgotten about the Burrnie/Daniel incident!  How sweet to go back and remember :-).  

I finished the sweater in time for the closing ceremonies and I think it turned out very cute.  I completely fixed the puckering issue and figured out how I want to do the right hand side decreases.  I'll be ready to restart on Saturday!

Just to keep the bear sweater exciting, I'd pulled out a skein of handspun yarn that I thought would be enough yardage.  Boy, was I wrong.  Luckily I remembered that I'd spun it during the Tour de Fleece a couple years ago and I still had my on paper notes about who I'd spun and yardages.

Okay, I spun that FOUR years ago.  Good grief!  Thank goodness for the blog records :-o.  I'd spun that from a friend's flock in hopes/plans to make her something from it...which I obviously never got done.  Luckily that roving is still here (still in hopes/plans to still make her something from it) and I was able to spin enough more to finish the sweater.  

I believe it's a Perendale fleece and I really enjoyed spinning and knitting with it.  I think fiberpusher may still be buying fleeces from this flock for her breed study offerings.  Here's a link to her shop and they'll also be at the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival in May.  Yikes!

Yep, the fiber season is getting ready to start :-o.

Technology...

So this "memory" just showed up on my phone (?!?).  I don't know how these happen (and probably don't want to know :-o), but this is so cute I couldn't resist sharing.  It's from the afternoon I sat out in the field knitting on the Baaxter sweater.  The clip of Kate in the middle...just keeping it classy here at Equinox ;-D.

This just showed up on my phone. Appears to be images and clips of video I took the afternoon I knit on my #carbeth out in the field (with a short clip of Kate playing with a beer can just to keep it classy 😆). I love this and am sharing here to “keep it” (since I don’t know how it even got made in the first place 🤔). #bangoutacarbeth #knitwithyoursheep #buybettertoysforyourdog🙄 #ilovemysheep #andkate

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady) on Feb 23, 2018 at 10:56am PST

I like that there is a picture of the sweater at the end.  I'm not happy with it and need to frog it and start over, but there's more to that story and I am proud that I made it.  Might be an Iknitarod re-knit.

Face Smashing

This is a Saint Tim thing and it's not really what it sounds like. Well, it is...but in a way that all the animals around here are addicted to.  I work my butt off taking care of them and make sure they have food, clean water and bedding and cookies...and Tim's the one everyone wants to see come to the barn.  Sigh...

Beggars

All three of them are vying for Tim's cheese sandwich.