Renny's Henny

I've been coveting an Emotional Support Chicken for quite awhile, but other than purchasing the pattern, hadn't gotten any further.  When I finished the...what did I end up naming the walnut dyed sweater/vest?...checks blog...it's not on the blog?...are you kidding me!?! 

Okay, start over.  When I finished the fall sweater/vest I decided the leftover yarn would be perfect to use for chicken colors...so I finally cast on...a couple of times I think, but who can say since I never wrote any of that down either?  

Once I was pretty much committed, I ventured into the garage for something and found the leftover yarn from my Renny sweater.  At least that one is on the blog...finally.  The naturally dyed yarn from the vest would have been nice, but the Renny yarn would be perfect!  I grabbed that bag of yarn and started over once again.

There were the usual fits and starts and starts and starts, but I finally have my chicken.  And I do think having a knitting project to work on did provide a little respite from the awfulness of everything going on right now, so this was a great first project for 2026 on a couple of levels.  

I thought it would be fun to take a picture with her out in the coop with the other hens that night so before it got super dark I set it up.  She looks enough like a real chicken that the other chickens hated her!  Chickens are like that.

Air Fryer (the gray chicken) took a couple of swipes at her and then split.  Zelda got a couple licks in too, but stopped to think...a little.

"Why are you trying to sneak in another chicken?!?"

Zelda was actually more afraid of her than it looks like here.  I only snapped a couple of pictures and then removed the intruder.  When I came back a few minutes later to finish evening chores, I found Zelda hiding in a laying box.  I put her back on the roost and she was okay.

I wasn't completely surprised that they acted that way because a few days earlier, "the other Sarah" had come to visit and brought her hen and three chicks and they received the same negative attention from another hen.  

Chickens are complicated...but if you actually read the pattern, they are pretty easy to knit :-).

October

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Most of October was pretty darn good :-).

Just In The Nick Of Time

I think the last time I dyed the yarn for this sweater was fall of 2019...which is around the time the blog got sketchy, so who knows what really happened :-/.  

I do remember the yarn started out (years ago) in springtime colors, then (years ago) tweaked to be more summer and then (two years ago), when once again I wasn't finding much inspiration from the yarn that was so special, it occurred to me to shoot for a fall palette and then, even better, a blanket flower palette. 

I started (for the last time) knitting the sweater for the 2020 Iknitarod.  Something went wrong, I think the gauge in the green section (?), and it didn't get finished until the 2021 Iknitarod.  At least it was finally finished and I miraculously remembered to take pictures the other day just before the blanket flowers were finished for the year.

I regret I was not able to finish this sweater while Renny was still alive.  I would have loved a picture of it with her.  I would have loved for her to see her beautiful yarn made into something that will last long after she and I are gone.  It's hard not to compare the hard fought journey from sheep to happy sweater with her hard fought journey from what should have been her tragic end to such a happy life.

Blanket flowers make for happy bees, too :-).

There are so many previous posts I should link throughout this post to tell a more complete story of the sheep, yarn and knitting, but it's a beautiful fall day and I'm going back outside.  Long time readers know her story.  If you are new, follow this link or her "label" on the right hand side of the blog and meet a tough sheep and her even tougher yarn.

Kentucky Wool Week

Normally this week would be spent frantically getting everything finished and set up for the Kentucky Wool Festival.  We lost both the spring and fall festivals this year :-(.   We are all not only missing the income those festivals would generate, but also the social aspects of it as well.  Most of us don't get out much.  Those festivals are a fun way to catch up with each other.

The Kentucky Sheep and Goat Development Office, Kentucky Natural Fiber Center, Kentucky Fiber Trail and Kentucky Wool Festival got together to create Kentucky Wool Week as a fun way for us all to socialize a little on social media and at the same time help promote Kentucky wool and our small businesses.

This year everything is based around a photography challenge. I'm hoping things will be settled down next year and we can expand Kentucky Wool Week to include some educational classes, competitions and fiber gatherings throughout the state.

Today's challenge prompt is Color.  You know, my favorite topic ;-).  Just to throw everyone, I'm going to actually post a picture of a color besides white or gray today!  There is, of course, more to the story. 

Back in August 2018 (yes, you read that correctly) Miss B and I dyed some wool with marigolds.  We had a big bag of yellow and orange blooms and a big bag of yellow and burgundy blooms.  We dyed some white Border Cheviot (PPPP) and some light gray Jacob (Billy Belly and Allie).

I think we used Alum as our mordant.  I'm sure I took a bunch of fun and pretty pictures that would probably remind me, but without a deep dive into the archives, all I have is the above picture...which has been sitting on my desktop as a reminder that I needed to write up a full blog post about this...since 2018. 

We dyed both white and light gray wool in both marigold pots.  I remember that the yellow and burgundy marigolds provided a slightly darker, almost greener, yellow.  You can sort of see that in the picture above.  

I know that I combed all of my share and I believe I spun the brighter of the two yellows.  It's kind of hard to say at this point though because I kept everything in a cute basket on my workbench so I could enjoy looking at it...which I thoroughly did...until I realized the dark rich yellows were fading and I then packed them away :-(.

The marigolds are in full bloom in the dye garden right now and that combined with the color prompt inspired me to pull the still mostly slightly colorful yarn out and finally share some pictures.  I'm now sort of toying with picking some of the flowers and tossing everything back into the dye pot and restoring the yarns to full color. 

It makes me sad to pick flowers though.  I've got plenty of poke weed berries right now though and it wouldn't make me too sad to boil those before they end up all over my car ;-).  Maybe I'll see if Miss B is up for a new natural dyeing adventure.  If we do, I promise I'll post the pictures much quicker.

Regardless, I can now take the yellow pictures off my desktop because I finally did a 'sort of' post about a fun thing we did...a couple of years ago.  I also cleaned out my refrigerator the other day, so look out!

If you are interested in joining in with the Kentucky Wool Week photo challenge, jump in!

It's Wovember Again Already?!?

Yes. Yes, it is.

Good grief.

Today, being November 4th, is Day 4 and the prompt is "Wool in color".  My first thought was to post a picture of some Jacob roving and praise the color GRAY...but then I remembered I actually had a colored wool project started that needed a blog post.

I thought it might be fun to show the two original GRAY colors that were then overdyed to make Not Gray colors.  I used the rocks around the blanket flowers as my setting since the flowers have a nice "fall" feel to them...

...and then I noticed that if I tweaked a couple of the unused colors (yellow and burgandy) I could almost match the flower colors...

I think the obvious tweak on the yellow is just to add a little orange.  The burgandy...I'm not so sure I can change enough...but I think I'm going to try...and if it works...and I like it better than the current colors...

Hey, it wouldn't be a knitting project if it didn't hit the frog pond at least once ;-).

Yarn Along - The Denim Elizabeth Shawl

Once I finally settled on what I was doing with the colors, twill structure and sett, the rest of the project went off without a hitch.  Actually, the entire project from dyeing and combing to spinning and finally weaving was completely enjoyable.  I think it does look like denim and I'm giving myself an A for creating and using c-o-l-o-r :-D.

I was worried there were too many white stripes, but side by side, it's probably not far off.  I wish I'd had a little more of the very light blue yarn, but again, it's not too far off.  The brown stripes can be either to match the pocket stitching or the dirt that is inevitably ground into my clothes just minutes after I put them on ;-).

The orange stripe on each edge is to match the side seam stitching and hems.

And this beautiful shawl pin (made by a friend who didn't just create the pin, but made the glass beads as well!) nicely represents the coppery/brass button.

My biggest fear in weaving a shawl was that it would end up thick, stiff and blanket-y when I wanted light and drape-y.  I worried a bit about how loosely woven this was, but I had confidence in the yarn and it came out just as I wanted. 

Thanks, Elizabeth!  I had a great time and, as always, learned a lot.  A great project :-).

Edited to add:  fiberpusher wanted to know the shrinkage after fulling.  Just off the loom and before fulling (which I do in the washing machine) the shawl measured 20" x 86".  After "washing" it measures 17.5" x 80.5".  It weighs 8.8 ounces.  There are 6.2 ounces of yarn left for another project :-).

My book this week is The Story of Arthur Truluv by Elizabeth Berg.  After last week I wanted something completely Pollyanna and this definitely fit the bill.  Nothing earth shattering, but a completely enjoyable story.  Perfect :-).

Joining in with Ginny...

Most Any Job Is Do-able...

...if you just do it.  I've had a couple of those "do-able" jobs lately.  Putting this blog post up is sort of one as well, just way more fun :-).  

Remember the Tour de Fleece?  Yeah, I barely remember it either.  I didn't get everything done that I wanted to, but I did get enough done that I was happy at the end.  And I did take some pictures throughout even though I didn't post them.  As I really do want to remember at least some of what happened, here goes a flash tour.

First I spun half of Chocula.

Next I spun and plied the dark denim from Elizabeth.

Then I stewed about what to do about all these "not exactly the same" balls of medium blues while I spun the brown and white.

I was really happy with the dark blue and brown and then lost my ever loving mind apparently when I was spinning the white and it came out way thinner than the first two skeins.  I stewed on that for a couple days.

And spun and plied the other half of Chocula to get my nerve back up...while I continued to also stew about the "not exactly the same" medium blues.

Whereas at that point, as I tend to do with most of my yarn/knitting/weaving problems, I turned it all over to 20 and went back to the barn to play with Biscuit and Muffin.

He pulled out all of the brightest blues (on right) that didn't perfectly fit in with all the grayer blues (on left).  He then weighed them and weighed out the same amount of grayer blues.  I spun both separately and then did three plying samples to figure out our next step.

Left to right:  bright blue plied with bright blue, gray blue plied with gray blue and bright blue plied with gray blue.  We decided that the bright blue and gray blue were not significantly different enough  (even though they look pretty different in this picture) to keep separate so I plied them together and then spun the remaining gray blue.

All the blues are twisted together here (including a very small skein of light blue) and you can pick out a few different strands here and there if you look very closely, but if I alternate the all gray blue with the bright and gray blue as I knit or weave, I believe it will all work itself out into a "nearly all exactly the same so Sara is happy" finished project.  

I also found this in the dusty archives of early July.  Those three kids are so stinkin' cute :-).

It's That Time Of Year...Again

It's time for the Tour de Fleece!  20 is still assembling my complete line up for this year's Tour (fingers crossed he goes easy on me ;-), but I wanted to share a sneak peek at my special "big" project.  

Last year, when I was organizing the wool storage/skirting area, I found an old fleece of Elizabeth's. It was from 2013...hence the wool storage area needing to be organized :-o.  Since I already have a completed Elizabeth project, I felt like this gave me a free pass to try something "dangerous".

Several months ago, Miss B and I separated out some dark, some light and some mix of the two and then dyed it various shades of blue in hopes of ending up with a "denim" color.  We then ran it through the picker to start blending it and I planned on carding it all.  

I have no idea what made me try combing it the other day, but I'm so glad I did.  I hadn't been jazzed about the carded samples.  I loved it combed.  My only issue then was the amount.  How much would I have to comb to get enough to make a shawl (my planned project).  

Turns out you can comb an entire fleece if you just stop whining about it and do it!  Who knew... ;-)

You can click the "combing wool" label at the bottom of this post or on the right side bar for more detailed information about "combing wool".  I'm just going to share some quick pics for curiosity and posterity.

Messy to "faded denim".  I love this color...and I think we nailed it :-D.

I still have no real idea how this works*, but it does.  You start pulling the fiber through a diz (yes, this one is straight from my recycling bin ;-)...

...and keep pulling and it all comes out in one long, ready to spin, wool [thingy].  What would be a descriptive word I'm looking for here besides "top"?  Rope?  I then wound/rolled each [thingy] into a "bird nest" (man, this post gets more confusing for non-spinners all the time :-o) and tucked it into a basket.

Natural gray/brown, white, medium blues, dark blues...

...and a couple brighter blues...that I may try to tone down a bit so they are a little less "dangerous" ;-).

That's a big basket of wool!  17.2 ounces total.  I had more waste than I should have, but I learned a whole lot for next time.  The trick now is actually making myself spin it.  I'm so enamored with the basket of un-spun fiber that I'm worried I'll just keep petting it and never move on.

Another similar shot, but with Tilly helping "pose for scale" again ;-).

The colors are more accurate in the previous picture, but I like the light on the flowers and our old truck in this one.  

I finally finished this year's Ravatar/cartoon this afternoon.  Anyone already in the Ravelry group can get a sneak peek.  I'll post it here tomorrow...which most likely means Saturday morning the way things go ;-).  It's pretty cute!

* "It's still magic even if you know how it's done."  Terry Pratchett - A Hat Full of Sky

Yes, that's one of the Tiffany Aching books that I just burned through one right after the other.  Fabulous fun!  With a nod to the old Yarn Along posts...  

Yarn Along - Make Yarn Use Yarn - Week Two

So far, so good...even if the Yarn Along post (that I am GOING to do every week this year!) is a day late.  I even doubled up posts for Tuesday so there wouldn't be a conflict for Wednesday. Sigh...

I've now spun two bobbins of Liddy and a small skein of Emily/Annabelly on the CPW.  At the house I clocked 310 yards of Hershey on the Joy.  I also found (another) hat pattern I just can't live without, so Miss B and I dyed some stashed Jester yarn for that.  We also dyed some roving for her and half of a 2013 Elizabeth fleece that I found when I cleaned up the barn last year.

We started with a skein of medium gray and a skein of dark gray.  I also had a skein of dark green and medium green Jester already dyed from a project from several years ago...unfinished, like so many others, languishing in my stash.  

I was happy with the dark green, so left that as-is/as-was.  The light green (far right) got over dyed to make the dark navy and dark brown.  The dark blue was done with one of the three blues I have that I didn't think to make a note of.  I'm pretty sure we added some black to darken it as well, but again, no note.  Make Yarn. Use Yarn. LABEL Yarn :-o.

The brown was done in stages.  First we used red over the green and then over-dyed that with yellow. We still weren't happy, so over-dyed that with brown.  Jacob is a great yarn for beginning dyers because it takes a ton of abuse.

The white is a small skein of Annabelly I had left from what I'd had to spin to finish off the collar of the Jester sweater several years ago.  I love that she is going to be part of this Jester project as well :-).  She was the first of the Belly lambs he adopted all those years ago.

I should have been ready to cast on, but I decided to take down of the Christmas decorations yesterday...which then gave me too much time to stew on everything...and this morning I decided I wasn't absolutely happy with the dark green, so we over-dyed it a couple more times again.

The small squiggle of yarn next to the light green is where we started.  The brownish green next to it is the original dark green over-dyed with orange and the skein next to that was the same original dark green over-dyed with brown.  I think I'm leaning towards the orange green at this point.  Now I just need to "git knittin".

Here is the hat.  It's Gone To The Mountains by fellow Yarn Along-er Andee Fagan.  Here is the story behind the pattern.  Not only is it really pretty, but the pattern is for a good cause as well ;-).

Here is the Hershey skein.  New followers are probably wondering what I used to dye this chocolate color. Actually, you are probably wondering why a grey sheep is named Hershey in the first place, now that I think about it ;-).  Here is why.  Isn't he cute?  And wow, look how young everyone looks! And the "big white lamb"?  That ended up being Rocket - Andy and Levi's dad :-).

I have a couple neat books to share and I'd include one here, but it's getting late and I need to go haul all my house plants back in the house.  Yes, after several days in the single digits, it's been raining and mid to upper 60s. Everyone got out for a good shower and drink and needs to come back in in the off chance it hits freezing tonight.  Plus, I'd like to actually Cast On and Use Yarn! :-D 

Joining in with Ginny...