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?

Up To My Armpits

...in the Trinity Vest from A Fine Fleece.



I had grand hopes for finishing it in time for the New York Sheep and Wool Festival, but, by the looks of my kitchen, my time might be better spent washing some dishes. However, stranger things have happened (not the dirty kitchen - funny, seems like the further I've been sucked into the spinning and knitting vortex, the dirtier my house gets, and yes, another reason for the sainthood of Saint Tim). However, being as I am in Kentucky and was recently at the races, the vest might just make a photo finish.

Stay tuned! And send some rain. I'm tired of brown, dried out, sun bleached photos.

Frequently Heard On The Farm

What are the chickens doing in the yard?!? The Adventure Chickens. Like that's an explanation. I guess we've all just (sort of) gotten used to them.







Even Miss Mollie the scarecrow doesn't seem to care anymore. Sigh.

Saturday Feature - An Afternoon Off

Some good friends came in town to go to the races and I took the afternoon off to join them. Now I'm not a huge fan of racing those too young horses, but even the biggest cynic has to admit there is something special about Keeneland.



In the paddock.



I like the turf races best.

Friday Feature - Will Be On Saturday This Week

Today I'm sharing an idea from the department of "Gee, why didn't I think of that?!?"





These two miniature needle felted sheep are going to be a wedding cake topper for a couple who raise Rambouillets.

Double Weave

More with the creepy spiders?

I love foggy fall mornings. Even during a drought, everything looks fresh and cool and almost mystical. I noticed several double decker spider webs covered in heavy dew this morning and decided to take a photo break. As I've found over and over again exploring with my camera, what you think is there just walking past a shrub in the yard is nothing compared to what you find if you really look.



Not only were there double weave webs,



but triple decker webs,



some tiny, very simple single webs



and big ones, too.



Even webs with little Hobbit Holes.

And then there is this beauty.



What do you think was going on here? Different variety of spider or just a weaver after my own heart ;-).

I missed what would have been a great spider "documentary" a couple weeks ago. We'd had big wind come through and a huge web just outside one of our windows was completely full of debris. I thought about going out and taking a picture, but didn't. I should have. I had thought the web was ruined, but the next morning all the debris had been carefully moved to the outside of the web and a brand new web hung in its place. Don't pass by. Stop. Take a look. Or a picture.

Got Wool?

We had a blast at the Kentucky Sheep and Wool Festival this past weekend! I think everyone had a blast. Now how often does that happen? We all worked really hard to try to put together the best sheep and wool tent the Kentucky Wool Festival has ever had. I've only been around for a few years and I thought we'd done a good job, but when some of the original festival founders came by and said this was what they'd always hoped it would be, I knew we had.

Not only was the tent completely full of sheep and fiber vendors, it was completely full of quality sheep and fiber vendors. Well, except for maybe one exception.



Dolores Van Hoofen made a brief stop on her whirlwind campaign tour running for President on the Fibertarian Party ticket.

Okay, for those of you not already familiar with Dolores and her bid for President, use the two links above for the whole story. In a nutshell, after Franklin, a very talented knitter, spinner, artist, author (with a new book coming out!), photographer in downtown Chicago ordered two pounds of Romney wool, a sheep, Dolores, showed up on his doorstep.

Fast forward through several years of hilarious adventures (don't really fast forward as you'll enjoy the read), Dolores is running for President. To the delight of everyone in the US and around the world, Franklin has (basically) allowed Dolores to make campaign stops anywhere she is (basically) welcome. Dolores couldn't pass up a chance to transform the Kentucky Sheep and Wool Festival into the Ken-TACKY Sheep and Wool Festival.



She was as entertaining as we all suspected she would be and made friends (mostly) everywhere she went, especially with Leon (although on second glance, I actually believe he has the same bewildered look on his face as the gentleman learning to spin in the first photo).



Dolores left promptly at the (basically) start of happy hour (aka 3:00) and I know everyone is excited to see where she'll show up next.

Here's a little something to use as "hand sanitizer" for your computer screen.



I want to thank everyone for all their hard work and especially everyone who made a trip out to see what we were up to. I hope you all had as much fun as we did and we are looking forward to seeing you next year at an even bigger and better wool festival.

Friday Feature - KY Sheep and Wool Festival

I'm out at the Kentucky Sheep and Wool Festival in Falmouth, Kentucky, this weekend. Today is the day the school kids come out and we are all happy to teach them a little about our sheep and wool and what we do with it. The festival goes on through the weekend. If you'd like to enjoy a beautiful drive through northern Kentucky (right next to Kincaid Lake State Park), come on out and say Hay!

Sneak Peek

I always try to have something new in our booth at the Kentucky Sheep and Wool Festival, which, don't forget, is this weekend. This year we decided it should be something for our favorite birds.

Birds love to add bits of wool to their nests (and you know I like to find our wool in their nests :-). It looks to not only help provide structure, but surely also soft, snuggly-ness for their babies as well. We played around with several different designs and have come up with this holiday ornament to hang in our outdoor Christmas trees.



I liked the prototype well enough, but when I saw them start filling the boxes, I had to say, "Now those are pretty darn cute!" I hope the birds enjoy them as well.