Meanwhile...Back In March

As the days passed at the beginning of March and I didn't get the Month End done and didn't get it done and didn't get it done...I could feel the spiral...and could. not. make. myself. fix. it.  I even gave up to the point that I turned all my calendars to April, which I don't let myself do until the compilation is finished.

I'm glad I finally got these caught up because A. there was a lot of March I'd forgotten about and B. there were a lot of Maisie and Short Round pictures in there.  Maisie and Short Round still getting up and into trouble.  Things are deteriorating with them and it was nice to know that not that long ago, everything was still fine.

Everything is still fine and whatever happens, when it happens, will be fine, but I am pretty sure if I didn't have these caught up, it would have been very, very hard to sit down and go through everything if everything wasn't still mostly fine.

A lot of these pictures made it to IG, but not all, and if they did they may not have been explained.  There's at least one picture that even I can't explain*.  I wish they'd all have been posted to the blog, but that obviously didn't happen, so here are some notes.

The month started with trying to trap a feral cat with a huge belly that I was sure, knowing my luck, was going to be a teenage mom.  That was Bullseye and he thankfully ended up just being a really wormy boy cat and your can watch his transformation from feral to friendly after he got trapped and vetted.  He's just as sweet as he looks.

The Iknitarod happened.  Yeah, remember that?  Noticed that I still haven't posted any finished pictures?  Yeah, I'm still working on it, but it's close to being finished even though all the snow in Alaska has probably melted.  I enjoyed "making time" to go sit and knit with a couple of the sheep in the yarn.

I hate how the pictures get cropped sometimes.  I have no control over that and the barn camera picture of Murphy standing all by himself in the barn lot with no one wanting to follow him out to the cold field is disappointing.  It's a funny shot in full.

*The fried chicken bone.  I have no idea.  It just appeared in the yard one day.  (!)

I love the light in the winter.

I remodeled Pinot's Patio with a new fence and built some big wooden planters to put my flowers in this year.  Big so they don't dry out so quickly and tall so Pinot doesn't eat them all.  Don't worry, I planted some stuff for Pinot.  I think that shows up next month.

I got a drum carder.  More to come on that...I promise.

The purple martin scouts showed up and then the rest moved in.  The video clip cut the sound off.  That unmistakable sound is the sound of spring.

It rained a lot.  

Frankie and Lancelot enjoyed doing all the stuff they've always done together - grazing, playing, taking turns watching while the other slept...best friends stuff.  I miss those days.  I don't regret taking Gato back.  He has earned a nice retirement and lots of old lesson horses don't get those, but I wish the herd dynamic hadn't gotten so skewed.  

I got a little stuffed sheep named Merino.  He came from Loved Before and he needs his own intro post.  Yes, I did knit him a warm wool sweater.  That needs a post too.  Since he came from across the pond, I thought he might enjoy watching The Great British Baking show so I added him to the Iknitarod team bag and brought him in for house knitting.  More about the baking to come.

I kept all of Dug's kids from the previous year.  I just couldn't bring myself to eat them so they lived on the counter in the kitchen all fall and winter and just as they started to look like they might not make it until spring, they did, and out they went to the garden and are doing Dug proud.

The picture of Maisie standing at the feed room door is a great story.  As crazy as she's always been, Maisie is extremely polite while waiting for breakfast and dinner.  She stands there waiting patiently...and because of that usually gets a little something extra :-).  

Like the purple martins, the redbuds are another great mark of spring.  Always beautiful.

Enjoy!

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Thursdays Are For Spinning

I did follow my plan and was able to fit in some spinning today.  Notice I did not share a Wednesdays Are For Painting post...but there's always next week.  This week has been crazy.

While it would seem delightful to spin in the barn with the sheep, Maisie is not always a delight around  tools and I have a video to prove it.  My ultimate goal was to spend time hanging out with our new cat who had just gotten home from getting his vaccinations and big boy surgery.  He'll get his own post, maybe tomorrow.  It's a cute story.

I was spinning Muffin and the fancy background is just our messy gravel barn aisle.  I need to remember this along with the nice diffused light.  Do they still do those family photos with the drop down backgrounds at department stores or am I really dating myself?

I'm still borrowing the electric drum carder from my friend, but I have one of my own on order and I'm super excited about that.  More about that to come as well. 

 

I had some freshly washed Muffin fleece and she's always a favorite of mine so I decided that would be my Thursday spin.  And then, because I can't think of Muffin without Biscuit, I "shopped" in the Wool House loft and grabbed a bit of him to blend in as well.

After one pass through - first Muffin and then Biscuit layered over the top.  I then split the batt and drafted it out and ran it through two more times to more evenly blend the two colors.

Muffin in the back and the blend in the front.  More about this to come as well.  I have plenty of blog fodder.  I just need winter to come back for a bit so I can get caught up...and go back to complaining about winter ;-).

I'm working on how I want to store the batts I make and I'd love to stay away from plastic.  I have a huge roll of kraft paper so I'm trying out some options.  I love the little vintage black and white lambs.  One should never get too old to play with toys ;-).

 

As You Plan To Carry On

I enjoy the New Year's Day challenge of trying to fit in a tiny bit of EVERYTHING that I hope to carry on throughout the new year.  I never get it all done, but it's good to at least think about what I'm hoping to accomplish in the upcoming trip around the sun.

I haven't done any spinning or knitting yet today, but it's only 8:30.  I might even at least dust my loom!  I did process a tiny amount of wool using a fun electric drum carder I have on loan from a friend.  You'll never guess who this is...so I'll tell you.

As I was looking for something else the other day I found this in a tub of odds and ends.  It's a couple of ounces of one of Renny's last fleeces.  Look!  A chicken!  (Instant distraction :-)

I took some pictures with my big camera with the plan to do a blog post (see how I'm fitting everything in?) and also made a couple of videos so you can see how the carder works.  It hums along with just a hint of sound as the wool brushes through.  A little wool processing ASMR.

 

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Time to get spinning :-).  Happy New Year!

Big Moose - The Cliff Notes

 

This was his lamb shear.  Look at those curls!  The locks were all carefully separated and then hand washed by a dear friend.  I can't believe it's taken me this long to take them for a spin, but I've gotten almost as much fun out of just admiring them as they are :-). 

If you remember from the Blaze combing post, I lash some locks to my stationary comb and use the loose comb to transfer the combed locks from one back to the other and them pull off the combed "top".  It's slow going, but you can't beat that prep.

I was undecided about how to handle the different colors of gray in his fleece.  I love all the variations, but sometimes once it's spun, the charm of it gets a bit lost and just looks messy...disorganized...I'm not sure how to describe it.  Not being a "color" person makes life complicated sometimes.

I ran the combed fiber through the drum carder - one pass.  You can still see some variations, but maybe a bit more subtle.  I really like how the yarn turned out.  I will probably do another sample where I don't blend it on the carder and maybe one more where I run it through twice to further blend it.  

Wool is so fun :-).

Winter Wool Workshop - Part Two

Warning - very picture heavy. I would have broken this down into three posts, but tomorrow is Yarn Along day and I'm hoping to get my Iknitarod sweater swatch done in time to post for that. At this point I don't even have the skeins wound off, so it looks like some late "training" tonight...which is good practice for the actual race :-).

We'll start the picture marathon with Miss Mira because I fully realize that most of you are only here to see her ;-D.  Yes, she really is as cute as she looks and tiny, tiny, tiny.  She and Maisie weren't far off on birth weight, but she does seem smaller than Maisie...maybe because Maisie was born larger than life ;-).

So, we started with six freshly washed fleece samples and experimented with combing, hand carding, drum carding and flick carding.  I didn't get pictures of everything, but here are some bits and pieces.

Preparing to comb.

Getting ready to pull the "top" off the combs.

Yes, we used my fancy beer cheese plastic container diz.  I am nothing if not classy ;-).

Now this is classy.  Nistock Taffy.  Just a gorgeous fleece and a dream to work with, as was Nistock Freckles who I somehow managed to not photograph either day (?).  Both were combed and drum carded.  We didn't attempt to hand card them because the staple length was so long.  Hand cards work best between three to four inches.

The pretty gray fleece was another group favorite.  Note the difference in length from Taffy.  Wool comes in many different lengths, textures, colors, crimps (curls/waves)...  This fleece was hand carded, combed and drum carded.  

Combing catches all the too short parts of the locks and any debris that might be in the fleece.  See the short bits left on the combs?  The top (long skinny stuff coming through the diz above) that pulls off is perfect.

The two white fleeces were a good challenge for the hand cards.  I'd have thought the the finer fleeces would have preferred the finer cloth (spikes closer together) cards, but we actually seemed to have better luck with a coarser set.

But the finer cloth drum carder handled them best.  Always something to learn.

Some fluffed up  Nistock Luna headed for the coarser cloth drum carder.  This was another stunning fleece.

Using the "stabber" to pull it off the drum.

After one pass through, ready for a second pass, already dreamy.

Like a cloud.

I'd forgotten I had a teasing board.  I found it when I was pulling out tools and I'm so glad I did. The board anchors to the table and you can easily flick the tips of your locks open and also catch any second cuts you may have missed when you skirted.  See how it quickly pulled off the sun bleached tips?  I am going to use this for Baaxter's fleece this spring!

A line up of beautiful, fresh from the farm fiber.  What a treat!

Nothing goes to waste.  All the leftover bits and pieces and mistakes and combing waste...got set out on the forsythia bush for the birds, because even though it sure doesn't seem like it, it's time to start putting out your collected yarn scraps and wool bits.  The babies might really appreciate some wool lined nest this spring!

And She's Off!

For the Tour, the TOUR!

Yeesh ;-).

Okay, here's the line up.  My main/overall goal is just to do something with wool every day. 

And by doing that,  making a good dent in the mongo bag of black wool shouldn't be so daunting.  It's a Texel/Jacob cross - to be woven into a throw - Hansen miniSpinner.

The silver is 2 1/2 pounds of Rebecca Boone, to be spun for Auntie Reg - Ashford Joy.

The white?  Why that's Blossom herself :-D.  Three ounces to be spun for socks - probably three ply - wheel TBD.

The orange is some Keebler dyed with walnuts two falls ago - a little over an ounce - various spindles.

Paper bag - 6 ounces of Buddy - to be hand combed and spun into lace weight for an upcoming Iknitarod challenge - Jensen Production wheel.

Missing from photo - Elizabeth - Great Wheel challenge for the Mountain Day - already up at the house...from a previous TdF challenge.  Sigh.

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Yes, I finished the knitting portion of my Sheep Heid - a photo finish in the wee hours before the Tour de Fleece started.  Now to weave in a bazillion ends and add the final touches and blocking (my favorite part :-) and THEN official photos. 

Here's the Bag O' Buddy.

I started combing this afternoon.  I'm still loving my Valkryie Combs and I LOVE fluffy Buddy.  Can't wait to start spinning this!

I was concerned that dyed Keebs wouldn't draft like un-dyed Keebs (the way I like) so I ran him through the drum carder to loosen everything up.  Looks good!

SO, didn't do any actual spinning yet.  I'm counting any wool work - washing, prepping, spinning, sampling...  As far as fulfilling the nap portion today...hanging head.  I did sit down and watch a TED talk though over lunch.  I doubt Blossom would approve, but it was sorta restful.  

Tomorrow.

Oh, my groups are Team My Favorite Sheep, Team Iknitarod, Team Hopelessly Overcommitted...of course ;-).