Bluegrass Yarn And Fiber Crawl - Random Tip #1

Today starts the 2026 Bluegrass Yarn and Fiber Crawl.  Of the ten days of the tour, our farm stop is scheduled to be open on both Saturdays from 11:00 to 4:00 and also Wednesday afternoon/evening from 4:00 - 8:00.  I am happy to schedule other times as well, but please email first as this is a working farm, so who knows what's going on each day.

My focus for this year's crawl is education.  There are shopping opportunities here for sure, but I enjoy teaching and encouraging more than selling, so if Auntie Reg (the boss) isn't here, let's go out to the barn or sit on the Wool House porch and have a good time talking sheep and wool and fiber arts and teach each other some fun new things.

I know most readers of this blog are not local or not in a position to travel out here so I thought it might be fun to post some random tips each day that anyone might find helpful...or at least interesting even if you aren't a fiber or sheep person.  The tips will mostly be geared towards folks just starting out, but you never know everything :-).

Today's random tip is about angle of twist.  If you are having trouble with either over spinning or under spinning your yarn, use a color of wool that isn't a solid color.  Let's zoom in.

This is Kaala and her gray is a mix of light and dark and those dark strands show up as you spin, making it easy to see what you are doing.  As you add more and more twist, the angle (shown here in the dark diagonal line) changes.  

In general a 45 degree angle is a good starting point, but you may want to spin looser or tighter depending on what you want your finished yarn to do.  You might want to add in more twist for a stronger yarn for a pair of socks or less twist for a softer feeling yarn for a scarf.  

Bonus tip today!  Don't set your roving down on top of a dried up marigold flower.  Free seeds included with each purchase ;-D.

The 2025 Bluegrass Yarn And Fiber Crawl

It's time for the Bluegrass Yarn and Fiber Crawl and the farm and Wool House will be open for the following dates and times and can also be "open" at other times, but please email to make an appointment.  If you show up without checking first, you'll probably just get put to work ;-).

 

Saturday and Sunday July 26th and 27th from 11:-00 to 4:00

Wednesday July 30th from 4:00 - 7:00

Saturday and Sunday August 2nd and 3rd from 11:-00 to 4:00

So what can you do if you come out to the farm?  

Obviously bring cookies or crackers to treat the sheep and meet the flock :-D.

Bring your spinning wheel or current project and find a shady spot to sit and visit...or not visit if you'd prefer to just relax and not be social.  We understand.

Bring a picnic lunch or a bottle of wine and snacks and enjoy relaxing on the farm.

Wear work clothes and clean stalls or run the weed eater.  Just kidding...sort of... ;-).

Do a little shopping.  We have raw and washed fleeces, roving, batts, yarn, spindle kits, gift items...

Take a free spinning lesson - bring your own wheel or borrow one of mine. I can also help with basic knitting questions or problems...or teach you some new ones ;-).  I'm also happy to talk about how to process wool or take care of sheep.  What would you like to learn?

Get your passport stamped and try to win some prizes from the Kentucky Fiber Trail! 

There will should be cake on both Sunday afternoons.  Wednesday evening...I might make some fresh sourdough bread and have a bowl of bruschetta topping.

 

If you need directions or have any questions, just shoot me an email!

Wednesdays Are For Painting

I painted this several "Wednesdays" ago, but forgot to share it.  And when I was taking a picture of it I forgot to take one that showed exactly what it is.  It's a drop spindle.

This picture really doesn't show them that well either...and looking at it now I see that I'd forgotten to completely tighten down the hooks after they dried.  This picture was from the November Kentucky Shepherd's Market.  I am nailing this marketing thing!

I just love these colorful spindles.  I especially love to spin with them.  As the spindles twirl they look like kaleidoscopes.  The spindles on the bottom picture are just generic sheep.  The spindle in the first picture is a custom order with Pinto, Short Round, Tabitha and Maggie.  

It's hard to beat spinning with your friends...and actually spinning your friends.  The roving the spindle is nestled down into is some of Tabitha's.  I'm glad it has good home :-).

Things To Know

If you are headed out on the I-64 Spring Fiber Fling Trail this weekend, here are some things to know if you are coming here.

Yes, the Wool House is my studio, but it's also a fiber shop, class room, gathering spot, place of respite.  Please come on in!  

Everyone is welcome here.  This is a safe space.  

If you want to just stop by and get your passport stamped, that's perfectly fine.  

If you only want to meet the sheep, that's fine too.  I'd  probably bring some toll "money" - vanilla wafers or saltine crackers ;-).

If you'd like to spend an hour or two sitting on the porch with your spinning wheel or current project, watching the sheep and horses and listening to the birds (or the rain fall on the metal roof), that's also fine...and encouraged.  Bring a picnic lunch!

If you are stumped by your current project or spinning wheel or spindle and feel comfortable asking for help, I'll do my best to get you back on track.  Note that I am more hack than genius, but sometimes it's better to be lucky than good :-).

And obviously, if you are looking for some unique local yarns or spinning fibers, learn to spin kits, wool sheep ornaments, farm inspired folk art cards,...  please fill your free My Favorite Sheep bag to the top :-).

Yep, if you stop by during the I-64 Spring Fiber Fling, you'll get a free tote bag (while supplies last).

And if you've enjoyed your visit, but just don't need anymore yarn (whatever), but would like to tip the sheep, you can always Buy Them A [Bale Of Hay]

* * * * *

The forecast is not great, but it's Kentucky in the spring...  The Wool House will be open from 11:00 to 4:00 on Saturday and 1:00 to 4:00 on Sunday and again next weekend.  Other hours can probably be arranged.  Just email to make an appointment.

Solstice Sheep Of The Day - Kaala

With the way the draws have come, with so many matching their real personalities and traits, I expected to not see Kaala until Sunday or Monday.  

Kaala got here in 2018 and her first shearing here was 2019.  She was the very last sheep to be shorn that day.  In 2020 she was again the last sheep to be shorn.  In 2021 she was the last.  In 2022 she was second to the last.  I don't remember where she fell in 2023, but it was definitely in the last two.  She was at the end of the line again this year.

Some sheep figure out to just go on through.  Most fall in the 'wherever they land' category and some sheep put it off to the last minute rather than just get it over with.  This frequently happens with lambing too.  You know who the early lambers are going to be and the same couple of ewes will always be at the tail end.

Kaala has spent this year teaching people how to spin yarn.  Her fleece is perfect for this because it's not too long, but not too short and has just enough gray running through it that you can easily see your angle of twist.  She's in all the drop spindle kits these days.

Kaala likes treats, but what she really likes is to wait while everyone else goes out to graze in the morning because she's figured out Liddy, who also waits, get a special breakfast and she's figured out how to capitalize on that.  

The Renny Sweater

The Kentucky Shepherd's Market on Saturday went really well.  We had great vendors and a good crowd, excellent food, perfect weather and tons of fun.  Auntie Reg was there to keep things rolling in the booth so I was able to teach drop spindle lessons throughout the day and that made my day.

Well, maybe what really made my day was wearing my Renny sweater for the first time.  Yeah, I'd never even put it on after it was finished.  This is not the first time I've done that.  Remember the Rebecca Boone capelet story?  I've yet to wear the Lamb Camp Bottle Lamb poncho.

Why is that?  

The Rebecca Boone capelet knit up without a hitch if I remember correctly, but the Renny sweater took years to get the colors right and pattern settled.  I loved both items when they were finished, but I think I was worried the capelet would be too short or I'd look silly wearing it and that the Renny sweater wouldn't fit right or be comfortable to wear or something and then I would no longer love them as much.  

You'd think after learning my lesson about the capelet that I wouldn't be so funny about wearing the other two items.  I wonder if part of the poncho is because of the trauma of losing Abby and Early.  I miss those two lambs especially, but I've also backed way off enjoying all the lambs like in the old Lamb Camp days.  The poncho was made for lambing time.

I got lots of compliments on my sweater Saturday and when I told the story of not wearing it before, everyone understood and one knitter even finished my sentence for me "...you were afraid you'd no longer love it."  

That might be the beauty of gathering together for events like these.  I ended the day feeling inspired and encouraged and...a little less crazy.  And, like the Rebecca Boone capelet, I now love the Renny sweater even more.

I Finally Did It

I've avoided it as long as I could, but finally got coerced into making a drop spindle instruction video.  It took about 42 tries and on try 43 I finally got rolling...and Archie showed up.  That cat.  I didn't want to chance having to try for take 44, 45, 46... so I just kept going and no one was injured during the video and I didn't mess up and use any grown up words ;-).  It's actually sort of funny.

I uploaded it to IG because I know how to do that and it is a link that can be saved and reused.  I'll try to figure out how to post it YouTube next week.  I'm rushing around right now trying to get everything ready for The Fall Kentucky Shepherd's Market Day on Saturday.  It's going to be a really fun event!

If you'd like to learn how to use a drop spindle, here you go.  I'll also be teaching in person at the market on Saturday :-).

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A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady)

The end of the video got cut off (even IG wanted me to shut up ;-) so I posted the last two minutes separately.

 

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A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady)

My Favorite Sheep...Of The Week

"It's me, Baba!  Actually my name is Blossom, but everyone calls me Baba or Babababa. I'm going to be 11 next month.  I've lived here since I was just a couple days old."

"This is one of my mom's favorite pictures of me."

"This is one of mine.  I jumped up on mom's camping cot when she moved me out to the barn and decided I wanted to sleep on a cot all the time.  I eventually got too big, but it was sure fun while it lasted."

Baba was a funny lamb.  She and Betsy were best friends and she loved Hank a lot too.  Blizzard ended up being her best sheep babysitter.  I'd forgotten about that.  She was always (and still is) a good napper.  The cot was the funniest thing though.  I think that cot lasted a couple of months out there!  

There are a bunch of good stories and pictures if you scroll back through.  You can either use the "Blossom" or "Baba" labels on the right hand side of the blog or jump back to the 2012 archives.  She got here in April.

Blossom is mostly Texel with some other breeds mixed in.  I've always loved her classic sheepy beauty.  She has produced an amazing amount of wool in her 11 years here.  Her wool is easy to process and spin and is a really good for beginning spinners.  I include it in every drop spindle kit.

She loves to watch what's going on around her...when she's awake.  There is an hysterical video of her on IG watching Archie playing in the straw when he was a kitten.  I'd love to include it here, but I'm tired and need to call it a night.  Maybe tomorrow.

How about a Jacob sheep for next week?  Any requests?

Work In Progress

Sadly not new pictures of my only knitting WIP...which is a basically just a work with no progress :-/.

Just a pretty fleece and a bunch of drop spindles on the porch.  Yep, it's that time of year.  Time to be getting ready for the fall fiber festivals.  I have two coming up - the Millersburg Chautauqua Days festival this weekend and the big Kentucky Wool Festival the first weekend of October...which isn't far away...but it sure feels like it today.  96 degrees this afternoon. 

'Nuff said.

Happy thoughts, happy thoughts...this is Hershey.  Remember when Hershey was...Hershey colored?  2013 :-o.  How did this happen?  

He's a beautiful silver now.  This is only 1/3 of his fleece.  It was too big to wash all together.

It sure looks pretty and cool and relaxing on the porch this afternoon...  Luckily now that "August" is finally here (after two months of July apparently) the evenings cool off pretty nicely.  The Wool House Crafters meeting tonight shouldn't be too awful.  Auntie Reg made chocolate cake so that will make it all better...until tomorrow...when it's 96...again.  No break until at least next week. 

'Nuff said.

[Sheep] Business Saturday

Because shopping with Maisie is way more

...um...interesting than going to the mall!

We are developing an exciting new program here in the commonwealth (Kentucky is a commonwealth, not a state), The Kentucky Fiber Trail.  Kentucky is already well known for it's Bluegrass Trail (horse farms) and Bourbon Trail.  Now you can discover fiber farms throughout the state as well!  

Our farm shop (and barnyard :-) will once again be open the Saturday after Thanksgiving (November 30, 2019) from 1:00-4:30 for Small Business Saturday.  We'll call it Sheep Business Saturday :-D.  

We'll have calendars, fleeces, roving, spindle kits, Christmas cards and ornaments, wool sheep pins, a few wool wreaths, maybe some felted sheep and for fun, let's make Maisie Orneries!  I'll have a basket of "Ornery"  supplies set out and teach you how to make your own wool roving wrapped ornament.  

So, come hide out (bring your wheel! :-) on the farm with us that Saturday and take care of all your sheep and fiber-y gift giving needs.  We promise you won't be mobbed by fellow shoppers...unless you have cookies ;-).  If you need directions, just drop me an email.  

And We're Off

Well, 20 loaded me down for this year's Tour de Fleece.  I knew he would.  We're alike that way ;-). Since this seems to be the year of color, we settled on the Elizabeth blues, Murphy's gray, Chocula's light brown,  Petunia's darker brown, some white over gray core roving from Allie and gray over white core roving from Billy Belly.  Those last three are from deep in the SABLE*. 

The colorful batt in the bag came from a friend and is for one of the challenge days.  Not that I think the batt is going to be challenging, but the whole spinning red, green and white into one yarn...  I may have to add in a small ball of Plain White as an antidote.  This Tour will cure me or kill me!  

*Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy

I think the team ravatar turned out cute.  Muffin and Biscuit grazing nose to nose in the blooming clover :-).

Side by side. #Biscuit #Muffin #friends #sheepfriends

A post shared by Sara Dunham (@thecrazysheeplady) on Jun 30, 2017 at 3:00pm PDT

Just like in real life.

Thank you for all the kind words for Jester.  The very first wool I spun was Punkin's.  I sat down at a friend's wheel one afternoon and she got me started.  And while I was very excited to actually be making yarn, I found myself choking back tears.  It goes fast, that wool through your fingers. Those twelve years. Jester's seventeen.  I don't think I'll be spinning any Jester this year.

I Really DID Live Through The Wool Festival

So it looks like I broke the internet.  I FINALLY put together a blog post yesterday and right as I was close to publishing it, a major Verizon tower went down and the entire area was without intertubes until early this morning.  Oops... :-o

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Friday?!?  I really not sure where the week went. Heck, I'm not even sure where the summer went! The Kentucky Wool Festival went really well.  We could not have had better weather, the crowd was the second largest in 34 years (somewhere around 50,000 over the three days :-o), saw lots of old friends, made some new ones, sales were good, nothing got pinched and I think everyone had a great time :-).

As always, I had tons of good help.  Miss B and Miss L helped get the booth components ready ahead of time.  Auntie Reg and Stella worked in the "sweat shop" getting everything packaged and labeled. Saint Tim did his usual herculean job getting all my printing ready and the four legged family, for the most part, stayed out of trouble.

Tim covered farm duties, a Unit driving neighbor came over to doctor on T-Bone's leg (horrible dew poison this year :-o), Miss B and Always Amazing Aaron answered questions throughout the day and helped get new spinners started with their drop spindles and Auntie Reg did a great job basically tripping people coming into the tent and sending them in to buy stuff ;-).  

I am Not Good at "selling myself".  Oh, if you come in the booth and ask me a question, I talk until your eyes glaze over.  Having to go up to you and say "Hey, look at all this cool stuff I (and our sheep) made to try and support my bad sheep habit!"... I don't know why I can't do that.  And it's important.  This is what pays for the hay, straw, grain, shearing, vet bills...  Luckily I have a great team.  I appreciate everyone way more than they can even imagine!

*      *       *       *       *

I figured too many days had passed to do a booth tour, but I've had several requests from friends who couldn't be there, so here goes.  I missed a few things taking pictures.  I had so many bags of roving that we pretty much had to tie the booth together to keep it from exploding, but you'd never know by these pictures.  The funny thing is two of us were taking pictures and we both missed that and a couple other things.  

I loved having the raw wool out front.  It was pretty, attention getting, folks were looking for wool at the "wool festival" (it's primarily a huge craft fair with tons of great food and live music) and didn't smell up the booth.  I personally love the smell of raw wool, but as the temps climbed on Friday, it would have been a bit much for non sheep people perhaps ;-).

The usual card display.  What am I going to do with a 13th card next year?  

Volumes 1 and 2 of the Mug Shot Mugs.  

I actually made some felted sheep!

And wool wreaths, which Miss B did a fabulous job embellishing with all sorts of flowers she gathered their garden and fields again this year :-).

I made quite a few medium size wreaths, too, and even figured out an ornament size wreath...that neither B or I took a single picture of...and there were 24 of them in the booth!  How on earth we missed them and all the roving...

Punkin's Patch swag.  I think this design is really cute, but non blog readers didn't "get" it.  That's okay.  I'd rather they were "ours" alone anyway.  If you don't know who Punkin or Miss Ewenice or B. Willard is...

You know what I just realized?  There are no pictures of the 2017 Equinox Farm and Lamb Camp calendars!  Now I'm wondering if I'm missing files on my camera card.  This just makes no sense...

Edited to add:  And while I was waiting and waiting and waiting for the internet to come back yesterday I realized that there were also 24 Maisie Orneries and 24 Ornerie kits that neither Miss B or I took any pictures of.  That's a lot of stuff in a small area to miss getting in a picture somehow!

Anyway, back to the tour...

I had a super cute vintage Ashford Traveller for sale, but it was too crowded to set it out where someone could really try it.  It belongs to a friend's mother who is down-sizing and she has a regular and jumbo flyer, extra bobbins, a copy of Paula Simmons Spinning and Weaving With Wool and it is tuned up and ready to go back to work in case anyone is interested.  

We  sold 20 spindle kits!  As I ordered another 100 wooden wheels last month to make them, I realized that I've made over 200 spindles over the last 10 years.  That's kind of crazy in a sort of exciting way. If even only 10% of those folks stayed with it (like Miss B did :-) that's 20 new spinners! Definitely not a dying craft.

These are the prettiest wool balls I've ever made.  I almost hated to sell them, but what on earth would I do with 150 wool balls?!?  Inside joke - that's my most common question "What do you do with a wool ball?"  I just consider them neat decorations, but most were buying them for dryer balls. Anyway, they were made from the tiny throw away fleeces from Levi's cousins who got shorn this fall.  Perfect! 

Once again, my favorite part of the booth was the digital picture frame.  One thing I forgot to do was update the photo file, so we re-watched the same 2000 (!) pictures I used last year.  No matter.  I was happy to see the oldies.  If you don't already have a digital frame, go get one.  Just priceless to be able to watch and watch and watch.

Punkin's Patch.  All from one little lamb years ago.  You know, sometimes the whole thing just seems unreal. As the sun set and the night lights came on and the really good bands started playing while the dinner crowd grew and I was finally able to stand still and catch my breath and look around, I couldn't help but wonder a bit.  How did all this happen?

If you'd have asked me 25 (or so ;-) years ago what I'd be doing with my life, raising sheep and being a fiber artist teaching people how to spin yarn would never have crossed my mind.  Never. I don't really know what I would have said, but I can promise you it would not have been that.  What a privilege.  

I appreciate everything way more than anyone can even imagine!

It Was The Best Of Times, It Was The Worst Of Times...

Another Kentucky Wool Festival is in the books.

One of the big highlights of my weekend was Miss B's go big or go home flower arranging.  I'd sent her a text Friday morning and asked if she could bring me a few sprigs of fall flowers when she came up.  She showed up with armfuls (yes, plural :-) of fall asters and goldenrod.  We arranged them throughout the booth and they were fabulous!

Some of the usual stuff...

We put up both quarter round shelves in the "office" corner and that worked like a charm.  Must. Remember. For. Spring Festival.

And something new...

Lamb Camp yarn!

I haven't said much about it because I wasn't sure it was going to be ready in time, but Ohio Valley Natural Fibers did a great job hustling it through and it's really pretty.  I'm very excited about it :-).

In a nut shell, Miss B and I set aside about 75 pounds of wool from the spring shearing at Final Frontier Farm (where Liddy, Blossom, Lila and Keebler came from) and had OVNF spin it into a beautiful two ply worsted weight yarn.

kbdoolin knit a fabulous hat and mittens from it for display and another friend helped me dye some strands different colors to show how happy it was to be bright and colorful as well (if that's your sort of thing ;-).  Both gave the yarn a big thumbs up. Sadly, halfway through the festival some creep(s) stole the hat.  

And my Jester fingerless mitts.
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:-/

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I've been doing this show for twelve years now, I think.  I've never had anything taken.  I wasn't the only one this year.  A hard lesson to learn.  Well, we all already knew the lesson, but I think we like to think the best of people.  At least it wasn't something completely irreplaceable and the love that went into raising, spinning and knitting both items can never be stolen.  And we're going to move on!

I wore the Isle of Purbeck shawl in the evenings.  Perfect!

Took the Renny basket for fun and some "cred".

The 2016 farm calendars were a popular item.

As were the 2016 Lamb Camp calendars and cards.

I sold out of curls the first day.

And even sold some Bird Nesters.  I've been surprised that these haven't sold better.  I love my bag design and seems like everyone loves birds and bird nests and baby birds...  

The mugs sold well.  I had all the mug shots hanging up around the booth and it was nice to be able to put Liddy, Blossom and Lila next to the inside yarn display.  

20 did his usual bang up job advertising for National Hug a Sheep Day (coming up at the end of the month!).  He was hugged and hugged and hugged (and had his nose picked more than a few times :-o) and I wondered if he was really having as much fun as he looked.  Then a family came over and politely asked if they could take some pictures with him and told me they did this every year.  Nuff said.

It's a ton of work to pull this all together.  I'm not just responsible for our farm's booth, but I also organize the entire Wool Tent for the festival.  Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it.  Sometimes I think it's not.  But then when I'm sitting next to 20 or standing in my booth talking to people who come every year to see me and show me what they've been working on, tell me news, good and bad, from their year, talk about the news, good and bad, from my year, offer to watch the booth so I can run to the bathroom or get something to eat, hear Gary doing his spiel about shearing sheep or Alan teaching how border collies work or sharing a cup of hot soup with my friends in the tent, I'm proud of my team here at the farm and at the festival and I take a deep breath...and start thinking about next year.

A huge thank you to everyone!!!

There are more festival pictures on the Wool Tent blogspot and Facebook page.